"Chip-log, Mister Plumb!" Fox shouted aft. "Smartly, now!"

"Five and uh… five and a half knots, sir!" the young Midshipman shouted back after a long minute or two to toss out the log, turn the sandglass, check the line, measure the knot-marks, and report.

"Good as it'll get, right, Mister Fox?" Lewrie asked.

"Aye, sir! Ready a-bout!" Lt. Fox bellowed through a speaking-trumpet. "Ready, ready! Ease down the helm!"

God only knows her trim, Lewrie queasily thought, watching the helm spin round, noting the faint trembling of the spokes, as regular as the works of a good pocket-watch, that bespoke a decent balance to the ship, despite the shifting and consumption of stores, and all the water she'd shipped aboard over the long day and night.

"Helm's alee!" Lt. Fox shouted forward.

"Over, in the name of the Lord," the Sailing Master said in the old usage of the fisheries.

"Rise, tacks and sheets!" Lt. Fox yelled. The Afterguard hauled taut the lee spanker topping lift, the main tops'l's clew garnets were hauled up, and the jibs and stays'ls windward sheets were hauled taut, the lee sheets' binds round the belays undone yet held firmly, waiting for the proper moment when the bows were right up to the eyes of the wind, and they luffed and shivered.

"Come up, ye darlin' lass, come up, I say!" Quartermaster Hook crooned, as he and Slater let go the spokes and watched them almost blur as the wheel spun, even with relieving tackles rigged belowdecks, a sure sign that Thermopylae would go up to the wind ardently.

She's goin' t' make it! Lewrie exulted.

"Haul taut! Mains'l haul!" Fox all but screeched. "Haul of all!"

It was so dark, it was impossible to see the bows sweep round, see the proper trim of the sails, or the yard-cloths to mark the angle of the yards, but… one could feel her lift on the fierce-scending sea, stark upright for a long moment, then begin to heel to larboard; feel the wind as it shifted from right-ahead to one's right cheek; hear the rustling crackle of icy-stiff canvas as it whooshed over the deck, the groan of starboard sheets as they took the new strain, then a second whump and whoosh as they and the reefed main tops'1 filled with wind and bellied out as stiff as sheet metal!