To stay a square-rigged ship is an affair of knowledge and swift sight; and a man used to the succinct evolutions of a schooner will always tend to be too hasty with a brig. It was so now. The order came too soon; the topsails set flat aback; the ship was in irons. Even yet, had the helm been reversed, they might have saved her. But to think of a stern-board at all, far more to think of profiting by one, were foreign to the schooner-sailor's mind. Wicks made haste instead to wear ship, a manoeuvre for which room was wanting, and the Flying Scud took ground on a bank of sand and coral about twenty minutes before five. Wicks was no hand with a square-rigger, and he had shown it. But he was a sailor and a born captain of men for all homely purposes, where intellect is not required and an eye in a man's head and a heart under his jacket will suffice. Before the others had time to understand the misfortune, he was bawling fresh orders, and had the sails clewed up, and took soundings round the ship. “She lies lovely,” he remarked, and ordered out a boat with the starboard anchor. “Here! steady!” cried Tommy. “You ain't going to turn us to, to warp her off?” “I am though,” replied Wicks. “I won't set a hand to such tomfoolery for one,” replied Tommy. “I'm dead beat.” He went and sat down doggedly on the main hatch. “You got us on; get us off again,” he added. Carthew and Wicks turned to each other. “Perhaps you don't know how tired we are,” said Carthew. “The tide's flowing!” cried the captain. “You wouldn't have me miss a rising tide?” “O, gammon! there's tides to-morrow!” retorted Tommy. “And I'll tell you what,” added Carthew, “the breeze is failing fast, and the sun will soon be down. We may get into all kinds of fresh mess in the dark and with nothing but light airs.” “I don't deny it,” answered Wicks, and stood awhile as if in thought. “But what I can't make out,” he began again, with agitation, “what I can't make out is what you're made of! To stay in this place is beyond me. There's the bloody sun going down--and to stay here is beyond me!” The others looked upon him with horrified surprise. This fall of their chief pillar--this irrational passion in the practical man, suddenly barred out of his true sphere, the sphere of action--shocked and daunted them. But it gave to another and unseen hearer the chance for which he had been waiting. Mac, on the striking of the brig, had crawled up the companion, and he now showed himself and spoke up. “Captain Wicks,” said he, “it's me that brought this trouble on the lot of ye. I'm sorry for ut, I ask all your pardons, and if there's any one can say 'I forgive ye,' it'll make my soul the lighter.” Wicks stared upon the man in amaze; then his self-control returned to him. “We're all in glass houses here,” he said; “we ain't going to turn to and throw stones. I forgive you, sure enough; and much good may it do you!” The others spoke to the same purpose.