The pencil of a painter could not draw lines more accurate!" "Captain Stowel tells us, sir, that the yards ought not to be braced in exactly alike; but that we ought to check the weather-braces, a little, as we go aloft, so that the top-sail yard should point a little less forward than the lower yard, and the topgallant than the top-sail." "You are quite right in taking Stowel's opinion in all such matters, Geoffrey: but has not Captain Greenly done the same thing in the Plantagenet?
When I speak of symmetry, I mean the symmetry of a seaman." The boy was silenced, though exceedingly reluctant to admit that any ship could equal his own.

In the mean time, there was every appearance of a change in the weather.

Just about the time the Plantagenet braced up, the wind freshened, and in ten minutes it blew a stiff breeze.

Some time before the admiral spoke the vessels outside, he was compelled to take in all his light canvass; and when he filled, again, after giving his orders to the frigate and sloop, the topgallant sheets were let fly, a single reef was taken in the top-sails, and the lighter sails were set over them.

This change in the weather, more especially as the night threatened to be clouded, if not absolutely dark, would necessarily bring about a corresponding change in the plan of sailing, reducing the intervals between the departures of the vessels, quite one-half.