She was as obedient as a good sailor, refreshed herself in the cabin where the lamp was burning, and returned with a glass of rum and water and a biscuit. "And my pipe," said he. And he told her where to find the pipe and the tobacco. Before she got into the hen-coop he said to her: "I wish I could teach the dog to steer; but that is impossible. But I tell you what--when those yards need trimming I shall want some one to hold on to the slack, and by all that's good Sailor shall do it." "Why doesn't God enable such a creature as this to speak as we do?" said Julia. "It has the mind--why should it lack the voice, when even the filthiest cannibal may use his tongue?" "Get you to bed, Julia." She crept into the hen-coop, wrapped her clothes about her legs, pulled the sailor's coat over her, and lay watching her lover. Hardy stood at the wheel with a pipe in his mouth, and the dog slept in his kennel alongside. It was not for long that Julia was allowed to sleep. When it was a quarter before four, when the darkness that grows deeper before the dawn dwelt like a sable vapour upon the face of the sea, when the flash of the star was fast in its westward sweep, and the red scar of moon looked dully down like a piece of broken glass thick stained, through which the crimson splendour above drains and oozes, the wind shifted suddenly three points; 'twas then almost abeam. He called to the girl. Her awakening found her astounded by her situation. Was she in a coffin? He called again, and the saint-like voice of love brought her from her sepulchre of hen-coop with an eager cry of, "I am wide awake. What is it?" "The wind has shifted, Julia. Do you know what I mean?" "The wind has changed." "Yes, you are awake. Take hold of this wheel." She grasped the spokes. The dog would be of no use then; all Hardy could do was to slacken away the weather-braces and haul taut the lee-braces as well as a single pair of British arms could. He clapped on the watch-tackle here and there, and made the best job possible under the circumstances; but he was bothered by the want of somebody to hold on to the slack. However, by belaying the watch-tackle and then belaying the brace he in a one-man fashion managed it, and when he returned to the wheel the ship slipped to her course again with her shortened canvas rap-full, and a wake like a mill-race. "Hurrah!" cried Hardy, with a slap of his thigh; "storm along, old Stormy! Whilst she creaks she holds! I'll teach that dog this morning to pull a rope. He has teeth and sense and some sailors have neither, because their teeth are worn out by chewing salt junk, and the crimp drugs their brains till the skull is like a rotten nut, full of dust." "It is my turn at the wheel," said Julia. "Just you go and turn in," he answered. "Here's the skipper and there's the bed. I shall take an off-shore spell sometime to-day. Rest till breakfast-time, and then you shall light the galley fire, and boil some coffee."