I stood due east away from it, and discovered presently that by easing on the halyard so as to lower the long spar I could obtain something the effect of reefing.
I set Fred and Will to making a sea-anchor of buckets and spars in case the sail or rotten rigging should carry away, leaving us at the mercy of the short steep waves that fresh-water lakes and the North Sea only know.

The big curved spar, now that it was hanging low, bucked and swung and the dhow steered like an omnibus on slippery pavement.
Luckily, I had living ballast and could trim the ship how I chose.
They all began to grow seasick, but I gave them something to think about by making them shift backward and forward and from side to side until I found which way the dhow rode easiest.
When Fred had finished the sea-anchor he got out the tools and began striking off the iron rings on the porters' necks through which the chain passed.

The job took him two hours, but at the end of it we owned a good serviceable chain, and a crew that could be drilled to take the brute hard labor off our shoulders.
Coutlass meanwhile was busy on the seat in the stern beside me making Hellenic inflammatory love to Lady Waldon's maid, whom he had wrapped in his own blanket and held shivering in his arms.

Lady Waldon herself sat on the other side of me, affecting not to be aware of the existence of either of them.

The other Greek and the Goanese had been driven below, where they started to smoke until I saw the glow of their pipes and shouted to Will to stop that foolishness.