“Oh, pray don't!” cried Lucy, trembling like an aspen leaf. “Oh, think! we shall soon be in the presence of our Maker--of Him whose name you--” “Not we,” cried David, with broad, cheerful incredulity; “we have lots more mischief to do--that lubber and I. And if he thinks he is going there, let him end like a man, not like a skulking lubber, running from the helm, and letting the craft come up in the wind.” “No, no, it was the sea he ran from. Who would not?” “The lubber! If it had been a tiger or a bear I'd say nothing; but what is the use of trying to run from the sea? Should have stuck to his post, and set that thundering back of his up--it's broad enough--and kept the sea out of your boots. The sea, indeed! I have seen the sea come on board me, and clear the deck fore and aft, but it didn't come in the shape of a cupful o' water and a spoonful o' foam.” Here David's wrath and contempt were interrupted by Jack singing waggishly at his work, “Cease--rude Boreas--blustering--railer!!” At which sly hit David was pleased, and burst into a loud, boisterous laugh. Lucy put her hands to her ears. “Oh, don't! don't! this is worse than your blasphemies--laughing on the brink of eternity; these are not men--they are devils.” “Do you hear that, Jack? Come, you behave!” roared David. A faint snarl from Talboys. The water had penetrated him, and roused him from a state of sick torpor; he lay in a tidy little pool some eight inches deep. The boat was bailed and lightened, but Lucy's fears were not set at rest. What was to hinder the recurrence of the same danger, and with more fatal effect? She timidly asked David's permission to let her keep the sea out. Instead of snubbing her as she expected, David consented with a sort of paternal benevolence tinged with incredulity. She then developed her plan; it was, that David, Jack, and she should sit in a triangle, and hold the tarpaulin out to windward and fence the ocean out. Jack, being summoned aft to council, burst into a hoarse laugh; but David checked him. “There is more in it than you see, Jack--more than she sees, perhaps. My only doubt is whether it is possible; but you can try.” Lucy and Jack then tried to get the tarpaulin out to windward; instead of which, it carried them to leeward by the force of the wind. The mast brought them up, or Heaven knows where their new invention would have taken them. With infinite difficulty they got it down and kneeled upon it, and even then it struggled. But Lucy would not be defeated; she made Jack gather it up in the middle, and roll it first to the right, then to the left, till it became a solid roll with two narrow open edges. They then carried it abaft, and lowered it vertically over the stern-port; then suddenly turned it round, and sat down. “Crack!” the wind opened it, and wrapped it round the boat and the trio.