CHAPTER III.

TROUBLED MEN ON THE TROUBLED SEA.


Two men on board the craft were absorbed in thought--the old man, and
the skipper of the hooker, who must not be mistaken for the chief of the
band. The captain was occupied by the sea, the old man by the sky. The
former did not lift his eyes from the waters; the latter kept watch on
the firmament. The skipper's anxiety was the state of the sea; the old
man seemed to suspect the heavens. He scanned the stars through every
break in the clouds.

It was the time when day still lingers, but some few stars begin faintly
to pierce the twilight. The horizon was singular. The mist upon it
varied. Haze predominated on land, clouds at sea.

The skipper, noting the rising billows, hauled all taut before he got
outside Portland Bay. He would not delay so doing until he should pass
the headland. He examined the rigging closely, and satisfied himself
that the lower shrouds were well set up, and supported firmly the
futtock-shrouds--precautions of a man who means to carry on with a press
of sail, at all risks.

The hooker was not trimmed, being two feet by the head. This was her
weak point.

The captain passed every minute from the binnacle to the standard