"But make the most
of it--make the most of it. Get the foretopmast stunsail run up.
If she creeps but a league, it is a league to the good."
The sail was sleepily set. Humbugging about with stunsails to the
cat's-paws little pleased the men, especially at night. For three
days they had been boxhauling the yards about to no purpose, and
it was sickening work running stunsail-booms out to airs that died
in their struggles to reach us. However, here was a draught at
last, and the old gurgling and moaning sounds of the breathless,
sluggish swell washing heavily like liquid lead to the sides were
replaced by the tinkling noises of waters parting at the bows with
a pretty little seething of expiring foam, and the hiss of exploding
froth-bells. At eleven o'clock the light breeze was still holding,
and the ship was floating softly through the dusk, the paring
of moon swaying like a silver sickle over the port mizzen topsail
yard-arm, everything quiet along the decks, no light save the
sheen from the lamps in the binnacle, and nothing stirring but the
figure of a man on the forecastle pacing athwartships, and blotting
out at every step a handful of the stars which lay like dust
on the blackness, under the yawn of the forecourse.
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