It is not the first time that a carelessly-moored vessel has got adrift in a calm, and found a breeze for herself, while her sail was hoisted to dry in the sun." Now, all we had to do was to carry forward the tack and set it up for reaching, and to do that we had to climb over the fagots at the foot of the penthouse, and the gunwale end of the timbers they rested on, the run of the deck being blocked altogether by the pile.

Seeing that when the ship was to be put about the square sail had to be lowered, brought aft round the mast and rehoisted on the other board, the unhandiness of the thing was terribly unseamanlike.
Bertric and I grumbled and wondered at it the while we worked, only hoping that by some stroke of luck we might be able to reach a haven without having to shift the sail.

It was to the starboard of the mast now, which would serve us well if the wind came from east or north, as was most likely.
Maybe that was an hour's work, and we had done all we might.

By that time the breeze had altogether gone, and the ship floated idly on still, bright water, with the hush of the night round us.

There was time to tow her head round when we knew whence the morning wind would blow.
Bertric coiled down the fall of the tack purchase, and nodded to Dalfin.