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And from aft came to their ears the joyous whoops of the homeward-bound men, close to their native land and anxious to get to it by the shortest route. Murphy occasionally looked out at them; they were all near the wheel, cursing and berating those handling the spokes, and being cursed in return. But they were not quarreling.

“Me brother Mike was right,” muttered Murphy, as he drew his head in after a look at them. “They’ve forgotten their dinner. They’d rather fight than ate, but rather wark than fight.”

The big, light ship, even with upper canvas gone and the yards braced to port, was skimming along over the heaving seas at a ten-knot rate, and Murphy’s occasional glimpses of that growing landfall showed him details of rock and wood and red sandy soil that bespoke a steep beach and a rocky bottom. The air was full of spume and the gale whistled dismally through the rigging with a sound very much like that of Murphy’s big base-burner in his Front Street boarding-house, when the chill wintry winds whistled over the housetops. He wondered if he would ever return.

“God help us, Skipper,” he said, solemnly, “if we don’t strike at high tide. For at low tide we’ll go to pieces an’ be drowned as the water rises.”

“I looked it up this morning,” said the captain, painfully; for he was still dazed from the effects of the brick. “It is high tide on this coast at four this afternoon.”

“All to the good, as far as our lives are consarned,” said Murphy; “and mebbe for your ship, Skipper. It’ll be hard to salve her, of course; but she won’t git the poundin’ she’d get at low-water mark.”

“I don’t care. It’s a matter for the underwriters. Don’t bother me. I may kill you, Murphy, and your man Hennesey, some day, but not now. I’m too sick.”

They waited in silence until the crash came–a sickening sound of riven timbers and snapping wire rope. Then, from the sudden stopping of the ship, there came a heightening and a strengthening of the song of the wind in the rigging, and the thumping of upper spars, jolted clear of their fastenings by the shock. Looking out, Murphy saw that the topgallantmasts, with their yards, were hanging by their gear, threatening to fall at any heave of the ship on her rocky bed. And he saw that the beach was not a hundred yards distant. Also, that the crew was flocking forward.

“Let us out of here,” he called, as they came within hearing. “What more do ye want, ye bogtrotters? Ye’ve wrecked the man’s boat, but d’ye want to kill us?”

“Yis,” they chorused. “Why not, ye divils? Ye’ve nearly killed us all, dom yez. No mate, no whusky, no money. Tell us the road to Galway.”

“An’ the road to Limerick,” said another. “An’ whin do we git paid aff?”

“I’ll have ye in jail, ye hyeenas,” said Murphy. “That’s yer pay, and that’s the road to Galway and Limerick. Wait till the coast guard comes along. They’ll git ye.”

He drew back to avoid a brick that threatened to enter the deadlight, and the conversation ended.

Meanwhile the ship was slowly swinging around broadside to the beach. She was too high out of water for the seas to board her, though they pounded her weather side with deafening noise, and with each impact she was lifted shoreward a few feet more. Finally the crashings ceased, and they knew that, with water in the hold, she had gone as high as the seas could drive her. Then, with the going down of the tide, the heavy poundings of the sea grew less and the voices of the crew on the forecastle deck more audible.

“Can we make it in three jumps, Terrence?” they heard.

“No, ye fule. The wather’s goin’ down. Howld yer whist.”

Murphy, looking out through the deadlight, could see nothing of the water between the ship and the beach; but far down to the south he discerned a team of horses dragging a wagon holding a boat, and this he explained to the skipper.

“The coast guard,” explained the latter. “God grant that they get here before that bunch gets away. English law is severe upon mutineers.”

But in this Captain Williams was doomed to disappointment. The coast guard arrived in time and released them. But before this each man of the twenty-four had passed before the open deadlight, derided and jeered the unlucky prisoners, called them unprintable names, and slid down the side on a rope to dry land.

Murphy looked at them climbing the hills inland, their whoops and yells coming back to him like paeans of victory.

“And what county do ye think this is, Skipper?” he asked.

“The county of Cork, of course,” answered the captain.

“Well,” said Murphy, “an enemy’s country. We’ll hope that the county o’ Cork ‘ll take care o’ thim. They’re beyand you and me and Hennesey, Skipper.”