Nobody aboard the _Celestine_ worried particularly. They had been having that sort of thing all their lives. After a while it would pass. Only when it lasted for too long a time it _did_ make slow fishing. They put her under jumbo and riding sail and let go their chain anchor. Next day they took sail off her altogether and made ready their hawser and big anchor. Under both anchors, if it came to that, she certainly would be safe. This gale was some time in passing. And now it was coming on evening of the fourth day--two days of a heavy breeze and two days of the great seas. All the men, excepting the watch, were below, about half for’ard and half aft, those for’ard mugging-up or overhauling trawls, those aft listening to Jerry Connors, a great reader, who was now reeling off a most interesting story with dramatic emphasis. It was the “Cloister and the Hearth,” and Gerald was up in the tree with the bear after him--the _Celestine_ dancing like a lead-ballasted cork figure all the while. In the middle of it all the watch hailed something from deck. The Skipper, trying to keep from sliding off the locker and, at the same time, above the howling of the wind get what Jerry was reading, grew wrathy at the interruption. “What’s that ballyhooin’ on deck--whose watch?” One had risen, and now from the companion steps, his head above the slide, passed on the word. “It’s John’s.” “Oh, John is it? Don’t mind John--the least thing worries John. But what was he sayin’?” “He says there’s some big seas coming, and getting bigger all the time; and true enough, they are.” “Big seas, is it? Cripes, a man don’t need to stand watch on deck or stick his head out of the hatch, like a turkey in a crate, to find that out.” “Big seas coming aboard, he says, and hadn’t we better make ready to put out the big anchor, she being on her weak tack?” “Her weak side! That’s so--maybe we had. Tell him yes and call the gang for’ard. Now go on, Jerry, whilst we’re waitin’. What did that divil of a bear do then?” The Skipper leaned forward from the locker. “What did he do? Hurry on, Jerry-boy.” “And then he--” recommenced Jerry, but got no further. A scurry of boots was heard on deck, a quick slamming back of the slide, and down the companionway came John. Feet first he came flying and hauled the slide after him. “Here’s one big as a church and----”