small boys aloft, to reef and set her upper square-sail. When I
urged that it was as good as asking them to commit suicide, he cursed
me openly. 'Drown the poor pups, will I? I thought--damn you all!--
you laid yourselves out to breed seamen! You _say_ you do, at
prize-givings!' He ran forward again to get the hawsers buoyed
before slipping them.

"I never remember a sound more sickening to the stomach than those
chains made as they ran out through the hawse-holes. The one mistake
Link committed was in ordering the upper square-sail to be reefed.
By the mercy of God not a child was blown off the yards in that
operation; yet it was no sooner concluded than, having by this time
found a megaphone, he shouted up to them to undo their work and shake
out the reef.

"'That's madness!' I yelled from the wheel, where I clung dripping,
blindly pressing down the spokes and easing them as he checked me.
'Look to leeward, you blighter!' he yelled back.

"The ship had payed off slowly, and while she gathered way, was
drifting straight down upon an Italian barque that two hours ago had
lain more than a cable's length from us. . . . I thought our lower
yard--we heeled so--would have smacked against her bowsprit-end; and
from the outcries on board the Italian I rather fancy her crew
expected it. But we shaved her by a yard or so, as Link pushed me
away from the wheel and took charge. A moment later she had dropped
behind us into the night, and we were surging in full-tilt for
Plymouth, heaving over at the Lord knows what angle.

"But we were off; we were clear; and, strange to say, the worst of it