He seemed to hesitate for a minute.
"To the northward, to the northward," he answered, testily, as if annoyed at his own fleeting thought, "and bear a hand there.

Every puff of wind is worth money in these seas." He remained motionless, listening to the rattle of blocks and the creaking of trusses as the head-yards were hauled round.

Sail was made on the ship and the windlass manned again while he stood still, lost in thought.

He only roused himself when a barefooted seacannie glided past him silently on his way to the wheel.
"Put the helm aport! Hard over!" he said, in his harsh sea-voice, to the man whose face appeared suddenly out of the darkness in the circle of light thrown upwards from the binnacle lamps.
The anchor was secured, the yards trimmed, and the brig began to move out of the roadstead.

The sea woke up under the push of the sharp cutwater, and whispered softly to the gliding craft in that tender and rippling murmur in which it speaks sometimes to those it nurses and loves.