This caught Mr Fortescue Jones, the unoffending assistant-paymaster, in the eye, and made all the purser's clerks yell with laughter. When I went on deck again, shortly after Three Bells, we were pretty well clear of the Isle of Wight, the Needles Rocks being off our weather quarter and some miles distant, with the Dorset coast looming ahead. As I stood listening to the quartermaster instructing the helmsmen, one of whom was a young hand, telling them to keep the ship a couple of points free, until, as time went on, it came close to the next hour, two o'clock, or Four Bells; when, according to the routine of the service, Adams, who was midshipman of the watch, hove the log and reported that we were still only going eight knots, with the ebb tide in our favour. At that moment, Captain Farmer came out of his cabin; and, hearing this, directed the officer of the watch, Mr Bitpin, whose rightful turn of duty it was, to set studding sails, not being satisfied, apparently, with the old _Candahar's_ progress, although she was doing her best and surging along in grand style, as I thought. "Bosun's mate!" thereupon sang out the lieutenant. "Pipe watch to set starboard topmast and to'gallant stu'ns'ls!" "Ay, ay, sir," replied the boatswain's mate from his post by the after-hatchway; and, almost in the same breath, his piercing shrill whistle was heard, followed by his hoarse shout repeating Mr Bitpin's gruff command. "Watch set starboard topmast and to'gallant stu'ns'ls!" "Topmen aloft!" "Jiggers at the tops'l lifts!" "Clear away stu'ns'l gear!" These successive orders were now jerked out in rapid rotation by Mr Bitpin, who stood at the poop-rail bellowing away like a wild bull, Captain Farmer remaining alongside him and surveying with critical eye all that was done as the hands scrambled up the rigging and bustled about the deck, casting off ropes and getting the booms prepared; until, anon, the captains of the fore and maintops and the captain of the forecastle, as well as the gunner's mate, whose task it was to see to the main topmast studding sail, reported "All ready!" Therefore the lieutenant, with a deeper bellow than before, shouted "Sway away!" In an instant, the watch on deck, bending on to the halliards with a will, hoisted the gleaming white sails aloft and sheeted them home; when, bellying out before the northerly breeze, they expanded their folds, making the yardarms creak again, and looking like the wings of some gigantic seabird, the ship herself bearing out the resemblance and swooping away in a heavy lurch to leeward, after apparently preening her pinions for a fresh flight, being now a perfect pyramid of canvas from truck to deck. "Mr Adams," called out Mr Bitpin presently from the poop, evidently in obedience to some quiet order given by the captain, to the midshipman, who of course stood immediately below his superior officer on the quarter-deck, "heave the log again and tell me what she's going now!"