Then fell another calm, longer and more dead than the last. The sea was like glass, the horizon hazy, and the heat oppressive. The carpenter, as now and again he looked up at the lifeless sails, muttered between his teeth. "I hear," said Tim, "our timbers above the water-line have sprung here and there. The old tub is quite rotten, and every day we lie idle like this she grows worse." "This time to-morrow, by all signs, we shall not be lying idle," said I, glancing up at the metallic sky, and following the line of a school of porpoises as they wheeled across our stern. "So much the better. We must run before the wind wherever it comes from. We could not live through a cross-sea for an hour." The storm came sooner than I expected. The metallic sky grew overcast, and a warning shudder fell over the still surface of the water. Then a sudden squall took us amidships, and sent us careening over on our beam, before we even knew that the calm was at an end. We had no more than time to shorten our courses and turn her head, when the tempest struck us from the south-west, lashing up the sea at our stern, and making our cranky masts stoop forward and creak like things in mortal pain. The carpenter's face grew longer than ever. "For mercy's sake, captain," said he, "keep her in the wind, or she'll crack to pieces. You can't afford to take a point. We're only sound under calm water-line; above it, she's as thirsty as a sieve." "More shame to you," growled Captain Keogh. "We're all thirsty here." "You'll have water enough presently," muttered the carpenter to himself as he went below. "Gallagher, you and your brother take the helm. Keep her out a taste, whatever yonder fool says. My! she's spinning along for once in a way. At this rate we shall make Achill by night." "Better try for Galway, sir," said I. "Hold your tongue, you French fool," cried the captain, who was greatly excited. "Save your advice till it's asked, or go aloft.--I tell you," said he, turning to Tim, "it's Sligo or nowhere. There's not a cruiser there to interfere with us, or an exciseman that we can't square. I reckon there's profit enough in this lace to pay an admiral's prize- money. Galway! You might as well try to land at London Bridge." Here the carpenter once more rushed on deck. He looked up at the canvas, then at the compass, then at the helm. "I declare, after what I told you, you're two points out of the wind, sir. The ship won't stand it, I tell you. She's leaking already. You need all that canvas down, and only your jibs and foresails; and even then you must let her run." Captain Keogh turned upon him with a torrent of abuse.