“I’d take the crojack off if I had charge,” Margaret criticised. “So would I, so would I, Miss West,” he replied; “if we hadn’t been six weeks already off the Horn.” She ran her eyes aloft, spar by spar, past the spars of hollow steel to the wooden royals, which bent in the gusts like bows in some invisible archer’s hands. “They’re remarkably good sticks of timber,” was her comment. “Well may you say it, Miss West,” he agreed. “I’d never a-believed they’d a-stood it myself. But just look at ’m! Just look at ’m!” There was no breakfast for the men. Three times the galley had been washed out, and the men, in the forecastle awash, contented themselves with hard tack and cold salt horse. Aft, with us, the steward scalded himself twice ere he succeeded in making coffee over a kerosene-burner. At noon we picked up a ship ahead, a lime-juicer, travelling in the same direction, under lower-topsails and one upper-topsail. The only one of her courses set was the foresail. “The way that skipper’s carryin’ on is shocking,” Mr. Pike sneered. “He should be more cautious, and remember God, the owners, the underwriters, and the Board of Trade.” Such was our speed that in almost no time we were up with the stranger vessel and passing her. Mr. Pike was like a boy just loosed from school. He altered our course so that we passed her a hundred yards away. She was a gallant sight, but, such was our speed, she appeared standing still. Mr. Pike jumped upon the rail and insulted those on her poop by extending a rope’s end in invitation to take a tow. Margaret shook her head privily to me as she gazed at our bending royal-yards, but was caught in the act by Mr. Pike, who cried out: “What kites she won’t carry she can drag!” An hour later I caught Tom Spink, just relieved from his shift at the wheel and weak from exhaustion. “What do you think now of the carpenter and his bag of tricks?” I queried. “Lord lumme, it should a-ben the mate, sir,” was his reply. By five in the afternoon we had logged 314 miles since five the previous day, which was two over an average of thirteen knots for twenty-four consecutive hours.