You may be sure we were all on deck save Mrs.Gebbie, some of us in cloaks, others mantled in the ship's tarpaulins, all clinging on by ropes, and jesting the most like old sailor-folk that we could imitate.
Presently a boat, that was backed like a partan-crab, came gingerly alongside, and the skipper of it hailed our master in the Dutch.

Thence Captain Sang turned, very troubled like, to Catriona; and the rest of us crowding about, the nature of the difficulty was made plain to all.

The _Rose_ was bound to the port of Rotterdam, whither the other passengers were in a great impatience to arrive, in view of a conveyance due to leave that very evening in the direction of the Upper Germany.

This, with the present half-gale of wind, the captain (if no time were lost) declared himself still capable to save.

Now James More had trysted in Helvoet with his daughter, and the captain had engaged to call before the port and place her (according to the custom) in a shore boat.