All hands gave a
jump; one or two dropped their caps; Mr. Baker looked up surprised.
The master, standing on the break of the poop, pointed to the westward.
"Breeze coming," he said, "Man the weather braces." Mr. Baker crammed
the book hurriedly into his pocket. "Forward, there--let go the
foretack!" he hailed joyfully, bareheaded and brisk; "Square the
foreyard, you port-watch!"--"Fair wind--fair wind," muttered the men
going to the braces.--"What did I tell you?" mumbled old Singleton,
flinging down coil after coil with hasty energy; "I knowed it--he's
gone, and here it comes."
It came with the sound of a lofty and powerful sigh. The sails filled,
the ship gathered way, and the waking sea began to murmur sleepily of
home to the ears of men.
That night, while the ship rushed foaming to the Northward before a
freshening gale, the boatswain unbosomed himself to the petty officers'
berth:--"The chap was nothing but trouble," he said, "from the moment
he came aboard--d'ye remember--that night in Bombay? Been bullying all
that softy crowd--cheeked the old man--we had to go fooling all over a
half-drowned ship to save him.
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