countenance, the yokels sniggered louder and it was all I could do to
prevent him from climbing up on the wharf and committing murder.

By the time the sloop's deck was perpendicular, we had unbent the boom-
lift from below, made it fast to the wharf, and, with the other end fast
nearly to the mast-head, heaved it taut with block and tackle. The lift
was of steel wire. We were confident that it could stand the strain, but
we doubted the holding-power of the stays that held the mast.

The tide had two more hours to ebb (and it was the big run-out), which
meant that five hours must elapse ere the returning tide would give us a
chance to learn whether or not the sloop would rise to it and right
herself.

The bank was almost up and down, and at the bottom, directly beneath us,
the fast-ebbing tide left a pit of the vilest, illest-smelling, illest-
appearing muck to be seen in many a day's ride. Said Cloudesley to me
gazing down into it:

"I love you as a brother. I'd fight for you. I'd face roaring lions,
and sudden death by field and flood. But just the same, don't you fall
into that." He shuddered nauseously. "For if you do, I haven't the grit
to pull you out. I simply couldn't. You'd be awful. The best I could
do would be to take a boat-hook and shove you down out of sight."

We sat on the upper side-wall of the cabin, dangled our legs down the top
of the cabin, leaned our backs against the deck, and played chess until
the rising tide and the block and tackle on the boom-lift enabled us to
get her on a respectable keel again. Years afterward, down in the South
Seas, on the island of Ysabel, I was caught in a similar predicament. In