As he expected, the wind freshened, but without the shift of a quarter of a point. The ship raced nobly through the gloom: she blew white steam from the nostrils of her bows; the white water to leeward widened with her pace and flashed with the emerald and diamond of the sea glow into the long, the streaming, the joyous homeward-bound wake. There was no more dead leviathan in the air; it was full of the salt sweetness of Swinburne's rushing sea verse. But the stars were gone; there was no light upon the sea but the light of its foam. The ship was plunging, the seas raced her in black curls, and burst with a pallor of dawn from her side, and onward she swept, bowing and rolling to the music of the bagpipes in her rigging, controlled by a single hand--a fearless and a valiant hand--the hand of a British sailor. However, he made up his mind to "crack on" in a sort of way, and the meaning of "cracking on" at sea is the carrying in bad weather of more canvas than the judicious would approve. I have known an old skipper to furl his fore and mizzen-royal and stow his flying jib every second dog-watch in dead calm or catspaw. The ladies reckoned him a safe man, and he made the voyage from the Thames to Sydney Bay in four months. Hardy had the instincts of a mate, and was always for carrying on; but he had not much confidence in staysail and jib-sheets, and at half-past eleven, seven bells of the first watch, somewhat benumbed with his grip of the spokes, he resolved to shorten canvas, and shouted to his girl. She came out of the coop like a figure from a clock. "Is it a storm?" said she in his ear. "Let's thank God," he answered, "like the sailor in the song, that there are no chimney-pots in the air. I wonder if I can trust you with this wheel? It doesn't kick very much, and I sha'n't be long." "You don't want to turn in, then?" "Love ye, no," he answered. "Get a good hold of these spokes, and I'll stand by." He watched her, conceiving that if the ship was off her course now and again it would not signify a brass farthing. The wheel-chains are a good purchase upon the tiller, and Julia's arms were strong and determined with the labour she had been put to, whether ashore or at sea. Young women cannot pull ropes on board ship, or lift old ladies out of bed on dry land, without adding strength to the muscles of their arms and determination to the clutch of their fingers. Hardy stood close beside Julia ready for that kick of the helm which, whilst he had stood at the wheel, had on three or four occasions started him out of a mood of musing. Twice came the kick--the blow of the surge against the rudder, but the girl held on and the ship swept on, and with every freshening of the black roar aloft the words of the Yankee poet came into Hardy's head: "Then suddenly there burst a yell That would have shock'd and stagger'd hell." "You'll do," said Hardy.