Page:Harry Castlemon - The Steel Horse.djvu/198

 thought Roy, "and no doubt I am in the way so I'll go aft. Is that that the way they use a foremast hand, I wonder—kick him when he falls down through no fault of his own? I am glad I am not a sailor."

When Roy had a chance to look about him, as he did as often as the lightning flashed over the deck, he saw that a good many things had been done during the few minutes that had elapsed since he boarded the vessel. Besides the sailors who were busy with the head-sails, a second party of men, under another officer, had been equally active on the quarter-deck; another huge sail had been given to the breeze, and a man sent to the wheel. The vessel was gathering rapid headway, and, what seemed strange to Roy, she was not rounding to in order to go up the harbor, because the lights which pointed out the position of the piers in the lower end of the city were still on the left hand, and one by one they danced away out of sight over the port quarter. The ship was holding straight for the entrance to the bay, through which she would soon pass to the open sea.