Meantime the Narcissus, with square yards, ran out of the fair monsoon¹. She drifted slowly, swinging round and round the compass, through a few days of baffling light airs. Under the patter of short warm showers, grumbling² men whirled the heavy yards from side to sine; they caught hold of the soaked ropes with groans⁴ and sighs, while their officers, sulky and dripping with rain water, unceasingly ordered them about in wearied voices. During the short respites⁵ they looked with disgust into the smarting palms of their stiff hands, and asked one another bitterly:— ‘Who would be a sailor if he could be a farmer?’ All the tempers were spoilt, and no man cared what he said. One black night, when the watch, panting in the heat and half-drowned with the rain, had been through four mortal hours hunted from brace⁷ to brace, Belfast declared that he would ‘chuck going to sea for ever and go in a steamer.’ This was excessive, no doubt. Captain Allistoun, with great self-control, would mutter sadly to Mr. Baker⁸:— ‘It is not so bad — not so bad.’ when he had managed to shove, and dodge⁹, and manoeuvre¹⁰ his smart ship through sixty miles in twenty-four hours. From the doorstep of the little cabin, Jimmy, chin in hand, watched our distasteful labours with insolent¹² and melancholy¹³ eyes. We spoke¹⁴ to him gently — and out of his sight exchanged sour smiles.

Then, again, with a fair wind and under a clear sky, the ship went on piling up the South