The Four-Masted Cat-Boat

The sea lay low in the offing, and as far as the eye could reach, immense white-caps rode upon it as quietly as pond-lilies on the bosom of a lake.

Fleecy clouds dotted the sky, and far off toward the horizon a full-rigged four-masted cat-boat lugged and luffed in the calm evening breezes. Her sails were piped to larboard, starboard, and port; and as she rolled steadily along in the heavy wash and undertow, her companion-light, already kindled, shed a delicate ray across the bay to where the dull red disk of the sun was dipping its colors.


Her cordage lay astern, in the neat coils that seamen know so well how to make. The anchor had been weighed this half-hour, and the figures put down in the log; for Captain Bliffton was not a man to put off doing anything that lay in the day’s watch.

Away to eastward, two tiny black clouds stole along as if they were diffident strangers in the sky, and were anxious to be gone. Now and again came the report of some sunset gun from the forts that lined the coast, and sea-robins flew with harsh cries athwart the sloop of fishing-boats that were beating to windward with gaffed topsails.

“Davy Jones’ll have a busy day to-morrow,” growled Tom Bowsline, the first boatswain’s mate.

“Meaning them clouds is windy?” answered the steward, with a glance to leeward.

“The same,” answered the other, shaking out a reef, and preparing to batten the tarpaulins. “What dinged fools them fellers on the sloop of fishin’-ships is! They’ve got their studdin’sails gaffed and the mizzentops aft of the gangway; an’ if I know a marlinspike from a martingale, we’re goin’ to have as pretty a blow as ever came out of the south.”

And, indeed, it did look to be flying in the face of Providence, for the mackerel-ships, to the last one, were tugging and straining to catch the slightest zephyr, with their yard-arms close-hauled and their poop-decks flush with the fo’c’sle.

The form of the captain of the cat-boat was now visible on the stairs leading to the upper deck. It needed but one keen glance in the direction of the black clouds—no longer strangers, but now perfectly at home and getting ugly—to determine his course. “Unship the spinnaker-boom, you dogs, and be quick about it! Luff, you idiot, luff!” The boatswain’s first mate loved nothing better than to luff, and he luffed; and the good ship, true to her keel, bore away to northward, her back scuppers oozing at every joint.