“It’d a-ben good night,” Daughtry concluded for him.  “She’s a-knocked our stern clean off of us, sir.”

Again wheeling, this time at no more than two hundred yards, the whale charged back, not completing her semi-circle sufficiently, so that she bore down upon the schooner’s bow from starboard.  Her back hit the stem and seemed just barely to scrape the martingale, yet the Mary Turner sat down till the sea washed level with her stern-rail.  Nor was this all.  Martingale, bob-stays and all parted, as well as all starboard stays to the bowsprit, so that the bowsprit swung out to port at right angles and uplifted to the drag of the remaining topmast stays.  The topmast anticked high in the air for a space, then crashed down to deck, permitting the bowsprit to dip into the sea, go clear with the butt of it of the forecastle head, and drag alongside.

“Shut up that dog!” Nishikanta ordered Daughtry savagery.  “If you don’t . . . "

Michael, in Steward’s arms, was snarling and growling intimidatingly, not merely at the cow whale but at all the hostile and menacing universe that had thrown panic into the two-legged gods of his floating world.

“Just for that,” Daughtry snarled back, “I’ll let ’m sing.  You made this mess, and if you lift a hand to my dog you’ll miss seeing the end of the mess you started, you dirty pawnbroker, you.”

“Perfectly right, perfectly right,” the Ancient Mariner nodded approbation.  “Do you think, steward, you could get a width of canvas, or a blanket, or something soft and broad with which to replace this rope?  It cuts me too sharply in the spot where my three ribs are missing.”

Daughtry thrust Michael into the old man’s arm.

“Hold him, sir,” the steward said.  “If that pawnbroker makes a move against Killeny Boy, spit in his face, bite him, anything.  I’ll be back in a jiffy, sir, before he can hurt you and before the whale can hit us again.  And let Killeny Boy make all the noise he wants.  One hair of him’s worth more than a world-full of skunks of money-lenders.”

Daughtry dashed into the cabin, came back with a pillow and three sheets, and, using the first as a pad and knotting the last together in swift weaver’s knots, he left the Ancient Mariner safe and soft and took Michael back into his own arms.

“She’s making water, sir,” the mate called.  “Six inches—­no, seven inches, sir.”

There was a rush of sailors across the wreckage of the fore-topmast to the forecastle to pack their bags.

“Swing out that starboard boat, Mr. Jackson,” the captain commanded, staring after the foaming course of the cow as she surged away for a fresh onslaught.  “But don’t lower it.  Hold it overside in the falls, or that damned fish’ll smash it.  Just swing it out, ready and waiting, let the men get their bags, then stow food and water aboard of her.”