in the skin.”  Marble insisted on leading the party, and never before had I seen the old fellow work as he did on that day.  He had a faculty of incorporating his body and limbs with the wood and ropes, standing, as it might be, on air, working and dragging with his arms and broad shoulders, in a way that appeared to give him just as much command of his entire strength, as another man would possess on the ground.

At length we reduced the canvass to the fore-top-mast stay-sail, and main-top-sail, the latter double-reefed.  It was getting to be time that the last should be close reefed, (and we carried four reefs in the Dawn), but we hoped the cloth would hold out until we wanted to roll it up altogether.  The puffs, however, began to come gale-fashion, and I foresaw we should get it presently in a style that would require good looking to.

The ship soon drove within the extremity of the head-land, the lead giving us forty fathoms of water.  I had previously asked Michael what water we might expect, but this he frankly owned he could not tell.  He was certain that ships sometimes anchored there, but what water they found was more than he knew.  He was no conjuror, and guessing might be dangerous, so he chose to say nothing about it.  It was nervous work for a ship-master to carry his vessel on a coast, under such pilotage as this.  I certainly would have wore round as it was, were it not for the fact that there was a clear sea to leeward, and that it would always be as easy to run out into the open water, as the wind was at that moment.

Marble and I now began to question our fisherman as to the precise point where he intended to fetch up.  Michael was bothered, and it was plain enough his knowledge was of the most general character.  As for the particulars of his calling, he treated them with the coolest indifference.  He had been much at sea in his younger days, it is true; but it was in ships of war, where the ropes were put into his hands by captains of the mast, and where his superiors did all the thinking.  He could tell whether ships did or did not anchor near a particular spot, but he knew no reason for the one, or for the other.  In a word, he had just that sort of knowledge of seamanship as one gets of the world by living in a province, where we all learn the leading principles of humanity, and trust to magazines and works of fiction for the finesse of life.

The lead proved a better guide than Michael, and seeing some breakers in-shore of us, I gave the order to clew up the main-top-sail, and to luff to the wind, before the ship should lose her way.  Our Irishmen pulled and hauled well enough, as soon as they were directed what to do; which enabled Marble and myself each to stand by a stopper.  We had previously got the two bowers a-cock-bill, (the cables were bent as soon as we made the land); and nothing remained but to let run.  Neb was at the wheel, with orders to spring to the cables as soon as he heard them running