Roust out the
old man--tell him the Amaranth's coming. And go and call Jim--tell him."
"Aye-aye, sir!"
The "old man" was the captain--he is always called so, on steamboats and
ships; "Jim" was the other pilot. Within two minutes both of these men
were flying up the pilothouse stairway, three steps at a jump. Jim was
in his shirt sleeves,--with his coat and vest on his arm. He said:
"I was just turning in. Where's the glass"
He took it and looked:
"Don't appear to be any night-hawk on the jack-staff--it's the Amaranth,
dead sure!"
The captain took a good long look, and only said:
"Damnation!"
George Davis, the pilot on watch, shouted to the night-watchman on deck:
"How's she loaded?"
"Two inches by the head, sir."
"'T ain't enough!"
The captain shouted, now:
"Call the mate. Tell him to call all hands and get a lot of that sugar
forrard--put her ten inches by the head. Lively, now!"
"Aye-aye, sir."
A riot of shouting and trampling floated up from below, presently, and
the uneasy steering of the boat soon showed that she was getting "down by
the head."
The three men in the pilot house began to talk in short, sharp sentences,
low and earnestly. As their excitement rose, their voices went down.
As fast as one of them put down the spy-glass another took it up--but
always with a studied air of calmness.
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