There was much to be done about the main deck, so I busied myself the
entire afternoon getting the running gear cleared up and coiled down
shipshape. The skipper stood near the break of the poop much of the time,
but gave no orders, and I noticed that Jim the sailor, or landsman, kept
away from his vicinity. Sometimes it seemed as though the captain would
follow his movements about the deck forward with his keen eyes.

It was Trunnell's dog-watch that evening, and by the time the bells
struck the vessel was running along to the westward under royals, with
the southerly breeze freshening on her beam. She was a handsome ship. Her
long, tapering spars rose towering into the semi-gloom overhead, and the
great fabric of stretched canvas seemed like a huge cloud resting upon a
dark, floating object on the surface of the sea, which was carried along
rapidly with it, brushing the foam to either side with a roaring,
rattling, seething, musical noise. At least, this is the picture she
presented from the forecastle head looking aft. Her great main yard swung
far over the water to leeward, and the huge bellying courses, setting
tight as a drumhead with the pressure, sent the roaring of the bow-wave
back in a deep booming echo, until the air was full of vibration from the
taut fabric. All around, the horizon was melted into haze, but the stars
were glinting overhead in promise of a clear night.

I left the forecastle head and came down on the main deck. Here the
six-foot bulwarks shut off the view to windward, but little of the cool
evening breeze. The men on watch were grouped about the waist, sitting on
the combings of the after-hatch, or walking fore and aft in the gangways
to keep the blood stirring. All had pea coats or mufflers over their
jumpers, for the air was frosty. The "doctor" had washed up his pots and
coppers for the evening, and had made his way toward the carpenter's room
in the forward house, where a light shone through the crack of the door.