“It was wather that we t’ought of then,” put in Biddy.  “Goold is good in a market, or in a town, or to send back to Ireland, to help a body’s aged fader or mudder in comfort wid; but wather is the blessed thing on a wrack!”

“The brig is coming quite plainly into view, and you had better give me the helm, Jack.  It is time to bethink us of the manner of approaching her, and how we are to proceed when alongside.”

This was so obviously true, that everybody felt disposed to forget all other matters, in order to conduct the proceedings of the next twenty minutes, with the necessary prudence and caution.  When Mulford first took the helm, the brig was just coming clearly into view, though still looking a little misty and distant.  She might then have been half a league distant, and would not have been visible at all by that light, but for the circumstance that she had no back-ground to swallow up her outlines.  Drawn against clouds, above which the rays of the moon were shed, her tracery was to be discerned, however, and, minute by minute, it was getting to be more and more distinct, until it was now so plainly to be seen as to admonish the mate of the necessity of preparation in the manner mentioned.

Tier now communicated to the mate his own proposed manner of proceeding.  The brig tended to the trades, the tides having very little influence on her, in the bight of the reef where she lay.  As the wind stood at about east south-east, the brig’s stern pointed to about west north-west, while the boat was coming down the passage from a direction nearly north from her, having, as a matter of course, the wind just free enough to lay her course.  Jack’s plan was to pass the brig to windward, and having got well on her bow, to brail the sail, and drift down upon her, expecting to fall in alongside, abreast of the fore-chains, into which he had intended to help Biddy, and to ascend himself, when he supposed that Mulford would again make sail, and carry off his mistress.  To this scheme the mate objected that it was awkward, and a little lubberly.  He substituted one in its place that differed in seamanship, and which was altogether better.  Instead of passing to wind-ward, Mulford suggested the expediency of approaching to leeward, and of coming alongside under the open bow-port, letting the sheet fly and brailing the sail, when the boat should be near enough to carry her to the point of destination without further assistance from her canvass.

Jack Tier took his officer’s improvement on his own plan in perfect good part, readily and cheerfully expressing his willingness to aid the execution of it all that lay in his power.  As the boat sailed unusually well, there was barely time to explain to each individual his or her part in the approaching critical movements, ere the crisis itself drew near; then each of the party became silent and anxious, and events were regarded rather than words.