"Look out there for your sheet!" cried old Draper, in a warning tone, assuming the direction of affairs and taking command of the boat unconsciously in the emergency, over the head of his officer, Mr Chisholm. "Let go your sheet, I say!" Bouncer the seaman, who sat on the after thwart and had charge of this, bungled about the job, having taken a turn with the end of the rope round the cleat, instead of holding it in his fist as he should have done; and the coxswain's harsh repetition of the order in such an imperative tone seemed to flurry him, making him all the slower. "Hang it all, man!" shouted Mr Chisholm, taking up the cry, "let go the sheet at once!" Seeing what a fog Bouncer was in, besides which the sail was just then beginning to bulge back as the wind headed us, the boat rocking for an instant and then canting over as if she was going to capsize, I drew my knife and rushed to where he sat in the bottom of the boat, struggling with the sheet! CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE. THE ARAB STRONGHOLD. At that moment the wind lulled for an instant, and I was just able to make a slash with the sharp edge of my knife across the rope, severing it instanter, and thus saving poor bungling Bouncer all further trouble; when, a terrific gust came, this time right astern, carrying sail and mast and all, the latter snapping off like a carrot close to the thwart where it was stepped, over the heads of all in the boat forwards, high in air--just as if the lot were the remnants of a big kite that had parted its supporting string, the sail ultimately disappearing in the distance, swallowed up by the angry waves. These latter were now boiling up round the cutter on every side, our little pigmy of a craft seeming lost in the seething caldron of broken water; but, she was buoyant as a cork, and, although half rilled, breasted the billows in fine style and running before wind and sea at a tearing rate with not a rag of sail on her now, nor an oar, save one Mr Chisholm and I rigged out over the stern by Draper's direction, this being better to steer her by than the rudder, which we then unshipped. It was a good job for us that our old coxswain had got wounded, and that Draper had taken his place just then temporarily while Hoskins was on the sick-list; for, though Draper was the oldest petty officer on board the ship--his promotion to a higher grade having been delayed, I believe, through his natural crustiness of temper, which he really could not help--there was no doubt that he knew the East Coast of Africa well, and the management of a boat the better of the two, especially in a stormy sea. Ay, and it was stormy now! Far as the eye could reach, the mad waves dashed and clashed against each other as they raced along, borne onward before the blast; throwing up their white crests, all lashed into foam, in showers of spray and spindrift that fell back over us in the boat, wetting us to the skin and blinding those that had to face it.