"Take a glass aloft and have a look at her, Mr. McGill," said the skipper. "No, never mind, I'll go myself, as you've never seen the _Battle-Axe_ at sea. I know the cut of her jib, and no mistake." So Will Ryder went up to the maintop-gallant-yard, and with his leg astride of the yard took a squint to loo'ard. He shut up the glass so quick that his wife knew at once that the distant sail was the _Battle-Axe_. As he came down slowly he nodded to her. "It is?" "Rather," said Ryder. "I'm sorry we've no stun-sails. We're carrying all we've got and all we can." "And to think he's as good as we were on our own point of sailing!" said his wife, with the most visible vexation. "Can't you do anything to make her go faster, Will?" [Illustration: "MRS. RYDER SAT ON A HEN-COOP AND NEARLY CRIED."] And when Will said he couldn't unless he got out and pushed, Mrs. Ryder sat on a hen-coop and very nearly cried. For if the _Battle-Axe_ had done so well up to this she would do better in the dead regions of the line, and the _Star_ would do much worse. There the want of a few more hands would tell. The _Star_ was no good at catching cat's-paws, and short-handed she worked like an unoiled gate. "If I'd only done what Silas Bagge wanted," she said, "we'd have been all right. To think that the want of a couple of hands should make all the difference." It was cruelly hard, but when vessels are undermanned at any time, less than their complement means "pull devil, pull baker," with the former best at the tug of war. For days there was nothing to choose between the vessels, save that the unusual strength of the trades gave the _Star_ a trifling advantage. Every night Watchett took in his royals. This Ryder declined to do, though he often expected them to take themselves in. "What did I say, ma'am?" said old Bagge. "I told you it _could_ blow quite 'eavy in its way in the south-east trades." And thus it happened that what the _Star_ lost by day she pulled up by night. And presently the _Battle-Axe_ edged up closer and at last was within hailing distance. Watchett stood on his poop with a speaking-trumpet, and roared in sombre triumph:-- "I'm as good as you this trip on your best p'int, Ryder!" "Tell him to go to--to thunder," said Mrs. Ryder, angrily. Nevertheless, she waved her handkerchief to her enemy's wife, who was standing by "plain Jack Watchett." "You've done mighty well," said Ryder, in his turn, "but it isn't over yet."