It was Salem: "All ready for'ard; hard down!"

Round and round went the spokes--the Julia, with her short keel,
spinning to windward like a top. Soon, the jib-sheets lashed the
stays, and the men, more self-possessed, flew to the braces.

"Main-sail haul!" was now heard, as the fresh breeze streamed fore and
aft the deck; and directly the after-yards were whirled round.

In a half-a-minute more, we were sailing away from the land on the
other tack, with every sail distended.

Turning on her heel within little more than a biscuit's toss of the
reef, no earthly power could have saved us, were it not that, up to
the very brink of the coral rampart, there are no soundings.



CHAPTER XXIV.

OUTBREAK OF THE CREW

THE purpose of Bembo had been made known to the men generally by the
watch; and now that our salvation was certain, by an instinctive
impulse they raised a cry, and rushed toward him.

Just before liberated by Dunk and the steward, he was standing
doggedly by the mizzen-mast; and, as the infuriated sailors came on,
his bloodshot eye rolled, and his sheath-knife glittered over his