“He said nothing to that. Only he looked at me, then a long look at Dan, and turned into his bunk again. Later in the day he drew out a quart bottle of whiskey and began to drink. That was a new thing to his crew that knew him so long. They’d pretty good reason to believe that he’d kept a bottle in his closet under lock and key for a little drink on the quiet when the dories were out and nobody by; but they knew he did it slyly so as not to have the name of it, or maybe so’s not to have to ask anybody to join him, and so save expense. But everybody knew that whatever liquor he took that way was not enough to hurt him. Yes, a sober man he’d always been--everybody had to say that for him. But now he was drinking with all hands looking on, taking it down in gulps, and when the first quart was gone he brought out another, drinking by himself all the time. “However, he warn’t drunk by a good deal when in the middle of the night he ordered all hands on deck to make sail. The men thought he was crazy; but he was the skipper. If anything happened, ’twas his lookout, not theirs. So they gave her the full mains’l, and then he ordered the man at the wheel to swing her off. “‘Yes, sir, and what course?’ “‘What course? Didn’t I say to swing her off? Put her fair before it. Jibe over your fores’l and let her run--let her run, I tell you! Whichever way she goes, let her run.’ “And we let her run all that night and all next day. She was under her winter rig--in March it was--no topm’sts; but the four lower sails alone were enough for any Gloucester fisherman that second night. I mind ’twas nine o’clock that night, and Abner Tucker’s watch. A staid, sober man was Abner. He’d been to sea for twenty years, and been with George for ten years--stayed with him because he knew him for a prudent man, I s’pose. Well, Abner took the wheel, and getting the feel of it, cried out, ‘Lord in heaven, it’s like trying to steer two vessels--she’s running wild!’ and braced himself against the wheel, but warn’t braced firm enough, or he warn’t strong enough, for he let her broach, and a sea swept her quarter, burying him and the vessel both. Over the top of the house went that sea and down into the cabin by the ton. They were floated out in the cabin and came tumbling up on deck. Josh Whitaker, a bait knife in his hand, jumped to the main peak halyards. “The Skipper noticed him. ‘What you goin’ to do?’ “‘Cut,’ says Josh. “‘You cut, and I’ll cut you!’ The Skipper, too, had a bait-knife, and he lunged with it for Josh. Then he stood guard by the halyards. ‘Or if anybody else thinks to cut’--and we saw the rest of it in his face--dark as it was, we saw that. “The Skipper was still on guard there when Dan and myself came on deck for our watch. That was eleven o’clock. Dan went for’ard to look out and I took the wheel from Abner, and glad enough he was to turn the wheel over when he gave me the course. I looked in the binnacle to make sure he had it right.