The Wreck of the Nancy Bell | Page 8

along!" said Captain Dinks to Adams, rubbing his hands together gleefully, as he put down his sextant on the top of the saloon skylight for a moment and gave a glance aloft and then over the side to windward.
"Yes, sir," replied the second mate. "Going fine--eleven knots last heave of the lead."
"Ah, nothing can beat her on a bowline!" said the captain triumphantly. "She's a clipper and no mistake when she has the wind abeam: bears her canvas well, too, for a little un!" he added, with another glance aloft, where the sails could be seen distended to their utmost extent and tugging at the bolt-ropes, while the topgallant-masts were bent almost into a curve with the strain upon them and the stays aft were stretched as tight as fiddle-strings.
"Yes, sir; she does," agreed Adams; "but, don't you think, sir, she's carrying on too much now that the wind has got up? I was just going to call the hands to take in sail when you came on deck."
"Certainly not," replied Captain Dinks, struck aghast by the very suggestion of such a thing. "I won't have a stitch off her! Why, man alive, you wouldn't want me to lose this breeze with such a lot of leeway as we have to make up?"
"No, sir; but--"
"Hang your `buts'!" interrupted the captain with some heat. "You are a bit too cautious, Adams. When you have sailed the Nancy Bell as long as I have you'll know what she's able to carry and what she isn't!"
With these pregnant words of wisdom, the captain resumed possession of his sextant and proceeded to take the altitude of the sun, shouting out occasional unintelligible directions the while through the skylight to Mr McCarthy, who was in his cabin below, so that he might compare the position of the solar orb with Greenwich time as marked by the chronometer. Then telling Adams at the end of the operation to "make it eight bells," whereupon the tinkling sounds denoting twelve o'clock were heard through the ship, he himself also hurried below, to "work out his reckoning."
On Captain Dinks coming up again, he reported that the Nancy Bell had done better than he expected for her "first day out," considering the adverse circumstances she had had to contend with, for she had logged more than a hundred and fifty miles; but he did not look quite so jubilant as he had done before going below, nor did McCarthy, who now accompanied him on deck to relieve the second mate, whose watch had expired.
"What's the matter, captain?" asked Mr Meldrum, with a smile, "are you not satisfied; or, did you expect the ship to have done more?"
The passenger was patrolling the poop, in company with his two daughters, Kate and Florry--the latter a rompish little girl, some twelve years old, with long golden-brown hair which the wind was making wild havoc of, dashing it across her face as she turned, and streaming it out to leeward behind her in picturesque confusion. The girls had some little difficulty in walking along the deck, as it was inclined to a considerable angle from the vessel's heeling over; but, by dint of clutching hold of their father, which they did with much joking and merriment and silvery laughter, each taking an arm on either side, they managed to preserve their equilibrium, keeping pace in regular quarter- deck fashion.
"No," replied Captain Dinks to Mr Meldrum's chaffing question, "I can't say that I am satisfied, for I'm sorry to tell you that the barometer is going down."
"Indeed!" said the other, "and with the wind from the south-east! I'd advise you, captain, to take in sail at once."
"Why, you're as bad as Adams," returned Captain Dinks rather huffily; "I suppose you'd like me to strip the ship just when we're getting the first fair breeze we've had since leaving Plymouth! Excuse me, Mr Meldrum, I know my business; and, I presume, you'll allow a sailor to be better acquainted with his duties than any landsman can possibly be."
"Oh, certainly, Captain Dinks," said Mr Meldrum with a bow, "and I'm sure I beg your pardon for interfering! Of course, as you say, a landsman has no knowledge of these things and has no right to speak."
"Oh, papa!" exclaimed Kate Meldrum reproachfully, "how could you say that?" while Florry pinched his arm and seemed convulsed with laughter, which she endeavoured to choke down in vain, at some secret joke or other; but Captain Dinks, quite restored to his usual good-humour and politeness by Mr Meldrum's apology, did not notice the girls, and presently all were chatting together with the utmost cordiality, the captain enlarging on the excellent run he hoped to make to New Zealand, and promising the young ladies that they should see Madeira ere the week