whom stuck close to her side, feeling the want of good pilotage, no
doubt, in strange waters.

The Molly Swash was still under her canvas, though very little
sufficed for her present purposes. She was directly off Whitestone,
and was making easy stretches across the passage, or river, as it is
called, having nothing set but her huge fore-and-aft mainsail and
the jib. Under this sail she worked like a top, and Spike sometimes
fancied she travelled too fast for his purposes, the night air
having thickened the canvas as usual, until it "held the wind as a
bottle holds water." There was nothing in this, however, to attract
the particular attention of the ship-master's widow, a sail, more or
less, being connected with observation much too critical for her
schooling, nice as the last had been. She was surprised to find the
men stripping the brig forward, and converting her into a schooner.
Nor was this done in a loose and slovenly manner, under favour of
the obscurity. On the contrary, it was so well executed that it
might have deceived even a seaman under a noon-day sun, provided the
vessel were a mile or two distant. The manner in which the
metamorphosis was made was as follows: the studding-sail booms had
been taken off the topsail-yard, in order to shorten it to the eye,
and the yard itself was swayed up about half-mast, to give it the
appearance of a schooner's fore-yard. The brig's real lower yard was
lowered on the bulwarks, while her royal yard was sent down
altogether, and the topgallant-mast was lowered until the heel
rested on the topsail yard, all of which, in the night, gave the
gear forward very much the appearance of that of a fore-topsail
schooner, instead of that of a half-rigged brig, as the craft really
was. As the vessel carried a try-sail on her foremast, it answered
very well, in the dark, to represent a schooner's foresail. Several