Like Bugs Under a Thimble

Mayo, understanding mariner nature, felt some contrition and was
prompted by saner second thought.

"You'd better take the wheel, Captain Candage. You know her tricks
better than I do in a seaway. I'll help the boys take in sail."

The master obeyed with alacrity. He seemed to be cowed. Anger no longer
blinded him to their predicament.

"Just say what you want done, and I'll try to do it," he told Mayo, in
a voice which had become suddenly mild and rather beseeching. Then he
called to his daughter, who had come to the foot of the companion steps,
"Better blow out that cabin light, Polly girl! She's li'ble to dance
bad, and we don't want to run the chance of fire."

Mayo got a glimpse at her face as he hurried upon the house on his way
to the main halyards. Her face was pale, but there was the firm spirit
of her Yankee ancestry of the sea in her poise and in her very silence
in that crisis. She obeyed without complaint or question and the cabin
was dark; even the glimmer of the light had held something of cheer. Now
the gloom was somber and depressing.

The schooner came round with a sort of scared hurry when the master
threw the wheel hard over and trod on the spokes with all his weight. As
soon as the bellying mainsail began to flap, the three men let it go on
the run. They kept up the jumbo sail, as the main jib is called; they
reefed the foresail down to its smallest compass.