While these things were floating in his mind, Mrs. Budd and her handsome niece were making preparations for passing the night, aided by Biddy Noon.  The old lady was factotum, or factota, as it might be most classical to call her, though we are entirely without authorities on the subject, and was just as self-complacent and ambitious of seawomanship below decks, as she had been above board.  The effect, however, gave Spike great satisfaction, since it kept her out of sight, and left him more at liberty to carry out his own plans.  About nine, however, the good woman came on deck, intending to take a look at the weather, like a skilful marineress as she was, before she turned in.  Not a little was she astonished at what she then and there beheld, as she whispered to Rose and Biddy, both of whom stuck close to her side, feeling the want of good pilotage, no doubt, in strange waters.

The Molly Swash was still under her canvas, though very little sufficed for her present purposes.  She was directly off Whitestone, and was making easy stretches across the passage, or river, as it is called, having nothing set but her huge fore-and-aft mainsail and the jib.  Under this sail she worked like a top, and Spike sometimes fancied she travelled too fast for his purposes, the night air having thickened the canvas as usual, until it “held the wind as a bottle holds water.”  There was nothing in this, however, to attract the particular attention of the ship-master’s widow, a sail, more or less, being connected with observation much too critical for her schooling, nice as the last had been.  She was surprised to find the men stripping the brig forward, and converting her into a schooner.  Nor was this done in a loose and slovenly manner, under favour of the obscurity.  On the contrary, it was so well executed that it might have deceived even a seaman under a noon-day sun, provided the vessel were a mile or two distant.  The manner in which the metamorphosis was made was as follows:  the studding-sail booms had been taken off the topsail-yard, in order to shorten it to the eye, and the yard itself was swayed up about half-mast, to give it the appearance of a schooner’s fore-yard.  The brig’s real lower yard was lowered on the bulwarks, while her royal yard was sent down altogether, and the topgallant-mast was lowered until the heel rested on the topsail yard, all of which, in the night, gave the gear forward very much the appearance of that of a fore-topsail schooner, instead of that of a half-rigged brig, as the craft really was.  As the vessel carried a try-sail on her foremast, it answered very well, in the dark, to represent a schooner’s foresail.  Several other little dispositions of this nature were made, about which it might weary the uninitiated to read, but which will readily suggest themselves to the mind of a sailor.

These alterations were far advanced when the females re-appeared on deck.  They at once attracted their attention, and the captain’s widow felt the imperative necessity, as connected with her professional character, of proving the same.  She soon found Spike, who was bustling around the deck, now looking around to see that his brig was kept in the channel, now and then issuing an order to complete her disguise.