“Sing ye, Jezebel, sing,” cried O’Toole, coming up panting with the exertion of trying to break a topsail brace. “Sing, an’ stretch th’ line,” and he led off with “Whiskey Johnnie,” into which the rest roared a chorus. Four men grabbed the mainskysail halyard and sent the light yard whisking up the masthead. The fellow who had loosed the sail had not left the yard and was sent aloft along with it, the men below trying to send him skyward with a rush. Suddenly the halyard broke. The man on the yard gave a spring as it dropped under him. He shot outward, fell headlong downward, and just as we thought he would plunge headlong to the deck, a hundred feet below, he reached the backstay with one hand. With a power born of desperation, he grasped the line. His body swung around with the sweep of a whip-lash, but he hung on. Then his other hand reached the stay, and he slid quickly to the crosstrees. Down the ratlines he came on the run. Reaching the lanyard, he sprang upon the deck and dashed into the crowd of men who still stood gazing spellbound at his performance. “Vat you do, hein? Vill you kill me, den?” he screamed, and he lashed out with a right good-will, knocking two of the men down. I saw O’Toole grinning, and as I was the mate, it was not my place to see too much. The big Irishman would take care of the fracas when the time came to interfere. I made my way around the deck-house out of sight, and sent a man after a new halyard. The moke in the galley was hard at it in an argument with the steward. I saw and heard nothing. The work forward had been started, and all was well. CHAPTER IV. I went aft on the quarter-deck where Captain Crojack stood eying the towering cloud of snowy canvas, from the foot of the mainsail to the skysail yards. “By gorry, Mr. Gore,” said he, “we’ve got a good start, and if the wind holds we’ll make a good offing during the night. I suppose you’ve met my passengers before?” and he motioned toward Miss Waters and her mother who stood near the companionway. They were apparently admiring everything about the ship except her sudden lurches, which caused them to make sundry clutches for support. I bowed and spoke to them, but the young girl was so absorbed in the new scene before her that she said little except that it was “perfectly lovely,” while the mother began to show signs of paleness coupled with a nervous catching of the breath at each roll of the ship. “She’s got a good lively feel to her, don’t you think?” went on the skipper, referring to his vessel. “The only thing that worried me was the stowing of all that marble and stuff amidships, and so much iron in her ends.” As he spoke, the ship gave a jerk and tremble, throwing the sea from her weather-bow in a smother and going through it like a half-tide rock in a strong current.