Next, she rolled heavily more over to starboard, as the wave which had broken over us sped onwards, washing the waist and forecastle; and then, with another great crash the mizzen and mainmasts rolled into the sea, and the port side of the ship that was under water rose up clear.

The foremast, which had broken away when we heard that great crash forwards had been snapped off just below the slings of the fore-yard, and had followed its companions overboard, although still towed alongside by the stays and starboard rigging that also held the other spars; and, the next instant, with an upward bound the Josephine righted. At the same moment, the water that had filled the cabin and waist and forecastle poured out on either side through the scuppers and broken bulwarks; while the sunken part of the poop and lower deck rose high and dry again as we looked on, hardly believing that what we had so anxiously awaited and striven for had come to pass at last.

"Thank God!" exclaimed Captain Miles in a voice faltering with emotion; while several of the men, quite unnerved, burst into tears.



CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

"A BAKER'S DOZEN."

"Do you know what day it is?" observed Captain Miles presently, as we were all busily engaged freeing ourselves from the lashings that held us to the spars, preparing to stand on the deck once more in an upright position and stretch our sadly cramped legs, our movements for so many hours having been much restricted.

"No," replied Mr Marline, taking the question to himself as he stamped his feet vigorously to restore the circulation of the stagnant blood. "I have lost all count nearly of time during this awful week!—Saturday, is it not—or Monday?"

"You are a little behind in one guess and too far ahead in the other!" said the captain quietly. "It is Sunday, the seventh day since our trials began."

"Well," responded the other; "it is a lucky day for us, whatever it may be, sir. I confess I never expected such a fortunate ending as this to our sad misfortunes. I had made up my mind that we must go to the bottom; and pretty soon too, after the wind rose again!"

"I hoped for the best," answered Captain Miles, shaking himself like a big Newfoundland dog, and stepping gingerly along the poop as if half afraid to walk. "I never despaired even in our darkest hour; and I'm glad to say I didn't, for I trusted in Providence! But come," he added, with all his old brisk manner restored in a moment, smiling cheerfully, "we must see about getting things ship-shape around us; for it would be a poor return for the mercy we have received to sit down idly now and do nothing to help ourselves. Look alive, men, there's plenty to see to!"

There was; so much, indeed, that it almost seemed a puzzle where to begin.

Our first consideration was the masts, which were still attached to the hull by all the starboard rigging, and were banging against that side of the vessel with each send of the sea, threatening to knock the lower timbers in; so, a working party being quickly organised under the indefatigable Jackson, the axe was called into use again and the remaining shrouds cut away, the fore and main-braces being passed round the stump of the foremast, which stood some twenty feet or so from the deck, in order to prevent the span from going adrift when the shrouds parted.

The lee rigging, tautened by the strain of the masts dependent from it, was soon severed; and then, the ship being more buoyant, floated away some yards leeward—the spars veered out to the length of the braces, serving as a sort of breakwater and keeping the waves from coming in over the bows as she tended, for her stern at once coming round caused her to ride easily, head to wind, just as if she were anchored.

"Now, men," cried Captain Miles when this was managed, and no pressing danger stared us in the face, "we must now see whether we can't get up anything to eat from the after-hold. I daresay you fellows feel a bit hungry, eh?"

You should have only seen the look on every face when he said this!

The very idea of food made all ravenous; and it was as much as Captain Miles could do to prevent the hands from rushing in a body into the cabin.

The men seemed inclined to eat him when he put out his hand to stop them.

"Take it coolly!" he sang out, pushing one or two back that had pressed forwards. "I will see that you've not long to wait. Jake, you know your way below, I believe?"

"Iss, massa," replied the darkey with a broad grin. "Harry bery often sen' me down to get stores when um busy."

"Ah, the poor fellow, I had forgotten him," ejaculated the captain, entering the cabin at once and going towards the steward's pantry; but he had to pick his steps carefully, the place being heaped up with a variety of things that had been swept out of the different berths by the sea, and were washing up and down for more than two days.

As Captain Miles had surmised, the mulatto had been drowned inside the little apartment devoted to his use; for there his body was now found, the colour of the skin nearly white through the action of the water. The corpse was brought out and laid reverently under the break of the poop by a couple of sailors whom the captain called into the cabin for the purpose; after which he and Jake then proceeded to unfasten the hatches leading down into the after-hold in search of provisions for the living, there being plenty of time to attend to the obsequies of the dead later on when our more urgent needs were supplied.

Cuffee the cook during this interval had gone forward to look after his old galley; and loud was his lament to find it washed away, its weight having parted the strong lashings that secured it to the ring-bolts in the deck when the ship capsized.

"Boderation!" he exclaimed. "How can um cook w'en dere's nuffin' to cook, an' no place to cook in?"

"Belay that grumblin' o' yourn, darkey," cried old Moggridge, who had been poking about amongst a heap of the debris of ropes and broken spars and gear that were piled in a heap between the windlass bitts and the top of the topgallant forecastle. "I do believe your blessed old caboose hasn't been washed overboard arter all! Here it is, only on its beam-ends like the ship was an hour ago; but I daresay all your pots and pans are all right inside."

"Golly, bosun, does you mean dat?" exclaimed Cuffee, going up quickly to where Moggridge was standing, inspecting the mass of heterogeneous things that had fetched up in the corner, consisting of a portion of one of the anchor-stocks, the men's clothes and traps washed out from their bunks, mess-tins, and all sorts of stray dunnage. "You tell me de galley am right an' safe, for true, hey?"

"Why, there it is, you ugly varmint! Can't you see it for yourself?" retorted the old seaman, rather nettled at having his word doubted.

"Lor' a mussy, dere it am!" ejaculated Cuffee, highly delighted when his own eyes confirmed the fact. "Golly, Bosun, we can cook sumfin' now!"

"I don't know how you're going to manage that as it stands," said Moggridge sarcastically. "Strikes me you'd better see about rigging it up properly first!"

"I'se spec' you'll help, Massa Bosun," hinted the darky cook in an obsequious way; "you clebber man, Massa Moggridge, an' knows how to bowse tings up."

"Oh, yes; I don't want any of your blarney now, Cuffee. I fancy we're all hungry enough to eat anything raw when we gets it, without botherin' about cooking to-day at any rate!"

A grunt of assent came from all the hands standing by at this remark; and I then turned round to see what Captain Miles and Jake were about in the cabin. I had not yet entered that apartment, the finding of the steward's dead body having scared me away. The pallid corpse looked so ghastly and terrible!

As I turned to go to the after portion of the vessel I was almost afraid that I should see the dead body of the steward again; but on reaching the entrance to the cabin I noticed a tarpaulin covering it in the corner, and I went hastily by, turning my face away, and bolting within the swing doors.

Here, if the jumble of miscellaneous odds and ends under the break of the forecastle had struck me as strange, the confusion was ever so much worse; for, nothing having been washed out, the entire furniture of every separate berth, as well as of the main saloon, were mixed together in one indistinguishable mass—clothes, books, food and crockery-ware, perishable and imperishable goods alike, all mingled in one inharmonious whole.

Blankets, bedding, and pillows were piled on the chairs and benches that had surrounded the centre table, which article, with its legs upstanding, was jammed into the captain's own sanctum, half in and half out, like the cow had been; while the fragments of plates and dishes, coffee-pots and glass-ware of all description, were scattered on the floor in every direction. Captain Miles's sextant and the tell-tale compass, that used to hang from the middle of the ceiling of the deck above, reposed peaceably together on the top of a double Gloucester cheese. Every variety of eatable was mixed up higgledy piggledy with articles for table use, and all sorts of known and unknown garments.

My trunk had not escaped the general destruction, the new outfit with which I had been provided being all spoilt; while some pictures and various cherished mementoes of my old West Indian home shared the fate of Mr Marline's wardrobe and the captain's kit.

Indeed, the sea had performed its scouring work so well, that it would have puzzled a wiser man than Solomon to have decided what was each individual's personal property, the whole having been thrown together like one of the odd lots at an auction sale.

After surveying the medley for a few moments, my attention was attracted to Captain Miles and Jake, the latter of whom was down within the store- room under the hatch in the stern-sheets, only his woolly head projecting, handing up several tins of potted meats and bags of biscuit to the captain; while the latter was placing these as he received them on a clear space of the deck from which he had swept the broken refuse away, checking off the things as Jake ferreted them out from below, his head bobbing down and up again each moment.

"There," said Captain Miles, as I came up to the two; "three bags of biscuit, four seven-pound tins of boiled mutton, two tins of preserved vegetables, one ham, one cheese, six pounds of coffee, and one firkin of butter. I think that will do. But, where is the sugar I told you to get out, Jake?"

"Here he am," replied the darkey, handing another bag up. "Dat's fine sugar, sah, for de cabin table."

"And where is the other sort?" asked the captain.

"Um here too; but cask too big for dis chile to lift."

"Then you must get out more in something smaller, for the men's coffee in the morning," said Captain Miles. "I don't want them to be treated differently to myself, and I know I like sugar in mine."

"Yah, yah, massa too good," laughed Jake; but he proceeded to obey the captain's orders, and another bag was soon added to the pile on the floor of the cabin awaiting distribution.

"Now, Tom," said Captain Miles to me, "run and call in a couple of the hands to take out their rations. I'm going to serve out the grub at once, and we may as well all eat together."

It should be mentioned that all these preparations, although I have taken so long to describe them, did not take up much time, the captain knowing from his own feeling that the men were all starving, and not keeping them an instant longer without food than he could help.

On receipt of his order, therefore, I hastened away, returning almost immediately with one of the sailors and Cuffee, who asserted his right of coming for the food; but, while I was absent Jake had procured a knife that was used for opening the tins of preserved meat out of the steward's pantry, where, from its being hung on a hook, it had escaped being lost among the other debris. With this useful little article he now proceeded to take off the tops of the cases containing the boiled mutton, Cuffee and his assistant parcelling the same out under the captain's eye.

The cabin table had been set upon its legs again and the provisions placed upon it, when the men being ordered to file in, Captain Miles distributed a small portion of the meat with a couple of biscuits to each. He advised them to eat slowly and moderately, saying that if they did otherwise they would feel very badly afterwards, on account of having gone so long without food.

Mr Marline and Jackson and myself were also rationed out in similar fashion, each and all of us, irrespective of position, being treated on an equality and Captain Miles himself only taking the same quantity that he gave us; then, when all had thus broken their fast, the men were dismissed and allowed to carry off away forward the greater portion of the provisions that had been got out for them, although with strict injunctions still to eat sparingly, at all events on this first day of their tasting any nourishment. They were likewise told to be careful not to drink too much water, Jackson, who had charge of the cask, being ordered to use discretion.

"We are only thirteen all told now aft—a baker's dozen, men," said the captain, "and I wish to carry you home in good health with me to England; so, mind what you are after, for my sake if not for your own! We have weathered the gale, and stuck to the ship though bottom upwards, for nigh on three days, braving the perils of the deep in the way of sharks and such like; consequently I think it would be hard lines on me if I couldn't fetch you safe into port in the end."

"You're a real good sort, Cap'en Miles, that's what you are!" cried Moggridge—acting as spokesman for the rest by general consent apparently, for the others gave a subdued sort of cheer that seemed to intimate their acquiescence in his remarks—"and I thinks as how we'd be no better nor brute beasts if we weren't to act as how you advises, eh, lads?"

"Aye, aye," chorused the rest affirmatively.

"That's all right then," said Captain Miles. "You can see I don't want to stint you, for I've only given you these few supplies to carry you on until we can get to the ship's stores in the main hold. You may go forward now, and I'd recommend you to get out all your duds and hang 'em out to dry as soon as you can, so as to have a shift bye and bye, and that'll do you as much good as the grub."

The hands then retired from the cabin, leaving only the captain and Mr Marline and I there, Jackson going out into the waist too, in order to draw some water and serve it out by the captain's directions.

"Oh, Captain Miles!" I exclaimed when we were thus left together, "all my clothes are spoilt."

"And oh, Master Tom!" he retorted, "how about my poor chronometers? They've stopped and will never go again, I suppose, till they've been put in dry dock in London and had a thorough overhaul, salt water not agreeing with their constitutions as it does with some folk. By Jove, though, Marline, I never thought of that before. I shall be puzzled how to get my longitude bye and bye, I fancy."

"My old watch is going, sir," said the mate. "I set it by the ship's time before our capsize, and it goes pretty correctly, for I didn't forget to wind it up all the time we were spread-eagling on the bulwarks."

"You didn't?" cried the captain. "You're a wonderful fellow, Marline, and you ought to be Archbishop of Canterbury or something! You say you set it by the ship's time on Thursday?"

"I don't know what day it was, sir, but it was the last time you took the sun," replied the other.

"Then, at that time, I recollect, we were in 32 degrees north latitude and 40 degrees west longitude. Ha, humph, I see! That will give us pretty well the time at Greenwich, with a little deduction. It's all right, Marline, I have it. Mind, though, you don't let the old turnip run down."

"Turnip, indeed!" exclaimed Mr Marline in pretended indignation, winking at me. "Just you hear him, Master Tom!"

"Well, well, I beg its pardon and yours," said the captain laughing; "but, let us get out of this disgraceful hole and go out on deck to see what the weather is like. Jake!"

"Iss, massa," replied the darkey, who, I forgot to mention, remained behind when the rest of the crew went forwards.

"I'm going to make you steward in poor Harry's place," said Captain Miles.

"Iss, massa," responded Jake, greatly pleased at the honour thus bestowed on him, and making a low how with a scrape back of his left foot, according to negro etiquette, in acknowledgment of the favour.

"Look out, my lad, and make matters snug here as well as you can. You may call in your brother darkey the cook to help you, if you like."

"Golly, massa, me do him much betterer own self," replied Jake grinning hugely. "Dat Cuffee bery lazy sometimes."

"Well, well, that's like the pot calling the kettle black, I fancy," said Captain Miles smiling. "However, you can please yourself, and get any of the hands you may want to assist in lifting back the bunks and so on in their proper places—some of the things may be too heavy for you. At all events, make the saloon presentable before we come down again, and swab up the deck."

"That's a willing fellow," he added to Mr Marline, as we went out and mounted the poop-ladder. "I never saw a negro so handy, so plucky, and so willing."

"Thank you, Captain Miles," I said, taking the compliment to myself, as having a sort of family ownership in Jake.

"Why, what have you got to do with it, Tom Eastman?" he asked in his humorous way, poking fun at me.

"Well, captain, I don't think you'd ever have seen him on board if it hadn't been for me," I retorted.

"You're right there, but I'll thank you for his passage-money, then, Master Tom," said he, laughing at his joke and I too joining in, our wonderful good fortune having restored all our spirits amazingly.

The sun now came out and the day became bright and cheerful, with a gentle soft breeze blowing from the south-west which was just sufficient to curl the crests of the waves and make the sea sparkling, the heavy waves of the morning having lessened considerably and the whole expanse of the ocean dancing before our eyes in the warm light of the noontide.

"I see," observed Mr Marline, "the hands have quickly acted on your advice about drying their clothes."

"Aye, poor fellows; and time enough, too, for they haven't had a dry rag on them, I believe, since last Monday."

"You forget you have been in the same plight," replied the other, as we looked at the long strings of shirts and trousers and guernsey frocks hanging from ropes that were stretched from the stump of the foremast across the deck forwards, all fluttering in the wind and making the ship look as if she were dressed with bunting in honour of some royal birthday.

"And so have you too, Marline, as well as this young shaver," returned the captain good-humouredly; "but I was not thinking of ourselves; for, we're both young fellows, like Master Tom here, and able to brave anything. Hasn't the ship suffered, though, poor old thing!" he added as he glanced sympathetically over her and saw all the damage, which, first the gale, and then our subsequent cutting away of the masts, had effected.

"Aye, she doesn't look as trim as when she left port," said Mr Marline.

Nor did she by a long way!

The mizzen and mainmasts had been cut down close to the deck, while the butt-end of the foremast stood up only some twenty feet or so above the forecastle—a jagged broken piece of timber, with the stays and other ropes stretching away from its head to the wreck of the spars tumbling about in the sea in front of us. The bowsprit alone remained intact of all our sticks, the gale having even spared the jib-boom; while the martingale and dolphin striker, with the shrouds on either side of the projecting spar were still all standing.

Looking inboards, the helm and steering apparatus were undamaged, as was also the binnacle, although this had a severe list to starboard; but, the skylight in the centre of the poop had been swept away, as well as a portion of the bulwarks on the side that had been under water, the rasping of the mizzen-mast having sawn them off flush with the deck.

This was the case, too, below in the waist, where the starboard timbers had been carried away nearly to the fore-chains, which probably had acted as a buffer and stayed further destruction in that direction; and it was only owing to this that the galley and pump-box had been saved, as otherwise both would have been swept overboard along with the dunnage I had noticed collected under the lee of the forecastle.

"Well, we mustn't grumble," said Captain Miles after meditating a bit over the damage with a serious face. "Our lives have been spared and the ship floats; so, there you have two things to the good, to balance our account on the other side of the ledger!"

"You're right, sir," replied Mr Marline; "but have you sounded her yet to see if we have shipped much water?"

"Aye, I did that a long time ago, while you were dreaming," said the captain with a chuckle. "Old Adze the carpenter saw to the matter as soon as we righted. She has taken in very little in the main hold; but the fore-peak is full, as I thought, through some careless fellow not putting on the hatch and battening it down again after we got up these new sails. However, we can't see about clearing it out yet, for the pumps are smashed and it will take Adze all day to-morrow to get them in working order again. Besides, I don't want the men to do more than is absolutely necessary to-day, for it is Sunday, as I told you before; and we ought, in more ways than one, considering all we have gone through, to observe it as a day of rest."

"I quite agree with you, sir," replied Mr Marline; "and if I had not thought so, you would have seen me long ere this on the fo'c's'le, getting up a jury-mast or something."

"Let you alone for that," said Captain Miles. "But, Marline," he added the next moment, "there is one thing we must do presently. I thought it best to leave it until sunset, before letting all hands turn in and have a good night's rest; and that is—"

"To bury the steward," suggested the other.

"You've guessed rightly," said he; "so now, as I see the men taking in their clothes, which are by this time dry enough, I should fancy, from their exposure to the sun and wind, I think I'll give them a hail."

This he did; and bye and bye, as the orb of day sank below the sea, the body of Harry, tied up in a piece of tarpaulin and with a heavy piece of chain-cable attached to the feet to make it sink, was committed to the deep, Captain Miles reading the impressive burial service, for those lost at sea, out of a prayer-book which he had recovered from the debris of the cabin and put in his pocket for the purpose.

This was our religious observance of the day. It was a great contrast to the prayers on the poop which we had on the previous Sunday, when the ship, in all the glory of her fine proportions, with her lofty masts towering into the skies, was rolling on the calm bosom of the ocean, with her idle sails spread vainly to the breeze that would not come; now, she was but a battered and dismantled hulk. The breeze we had wished for had come at last and waxed into a strong wind, which had ultimately developed into the hurricane that had done all the mischief— the final result of which was the present burial of our drowned comrade!

"Lads," cried Captain Miles when he had finished reading the service and the body had disappeared below the surface of the restless sea, "you can go and turn in now, all that like. Mind, you have a good caulk until early to-morrow morning, when you'll have to rouse out sharp, all hands, for there be lots to be done!"

We who were on the poop also went below soon afterwards to the cabin, where we found that Jake had cleared out all the debris and arranged the place so neatly that one would scarcely have imagined it had ever been in the state of confusion we noticed when first entering it.

Our bunks, too, were all arranged comfortably, with dry blankets spread in each; and I know that I, for one, was so glad to lie down on anything like a bed again after the two nights' exposure outside the ship, that I dropped off to sleep the moment I turned into my cot—the remark the captain had made about our being now thirteen in number, or a "baker's dozen," running in my head as a refrain to my dreams, although my rest was not in any way disturbed. The baker's dozen, however, made me think of bread on my waking up in the morning; for, I felt more hungry then than on the previous day, when the first morsel of food I tasted almost choked me.



CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.

WE BEAT UP FOR THE AZORES.

It was early dawn when the unwonted sound of feet bustling about over my head on the deck, which I had not heard now it seemed for an unconscionable length of time, roused me up to the realisation of our having at last been relieved from our terrible peril and the privations we had suffered whilst the ship was on her beam-ends.

Oh, what joy it was to think we were all safe on board the Josephine again!

Hunger, one of the most painful of the sufferings we had experienced, and indeed the one which I felt the most of any, was now banished completely to the realms of the past; and I had presently trustworthy evidence of this, Jake appearing at the door of my cabin and bringing in a steaming bowl of coffee and some biscuits, as a sort of "little breakfast" before the larger and more substantial meal was ready—the galley being already fixed up properly and Cuffee having resumed his culinary duties with all his paraphernalia in train.

When I got out on the poop, I noticed that the hands had not been idle while I was sleeping, so much already having been accomplished in the way of restoring the ship to an effective condition that the men must have set to work long before daylight, I was certain.

Moggridge was just going down the poop-ladder as I mounted it, on his way forward to execute some order Captain Miles had given him.

"Fine morning, Master Tom," he said.

"It is," I responded, "a regular jolly one; but, how busy you all are!"

"Aye, aye, young master, we can't afford to wait when there's so much to be done and so precious little time to do it in."

And then he was off in a jiffey.

Captain Miles was sitting on the port bulwarks, which were intact, polishing up his sextant.

"Good morning, captain," I said.

"Morning," he answered absently, so much engrossed with one of the eye- pieces of the instrument that he couldn't even look up.

I felt like the idle little boy in the story-book, who went and asked, first, the horse to play with him, and then, when that sagacious animal refused to accede to his request, on the plea of having his master's business to attend to, he tried to induce various other quadrupeds to come and amuse him, only to meet with a constant refusal—the idle boy having in the end to go to work himself, finding idleness, without companions to share it, the reverse of pleasure.

Everybody on board seemed too much engrossed with some task in hand to attend to me; even Jake, when I went below again, could hardly spare me a word, for he was intent on polishing up the saloon table again, trying to efface the effects of its long immersion in the water from the surface of the mahogany—a somewhat vain task, I may add, as the wood never recovered its original tone.

I then went forwards, only to see the men there working like bees. Not a soul even raised his head to glance at me as I passed by.

Adze, the carpenter, was up to his ears in the pump casing, which he had fixed again over the well amidships, after first taking out the valves and fitting new suckers to them. Cuffee, too, was blowing away at the galley fire till his black face looked like that of a red Indian; and, as for Mr Marline, he was in his element, as he always was when overseeing anything connected with the rigging of the ship, enjoying himself to his heart's content in setting up a jury-mast to take the place of our broken foremast. He had made the men lash the topmast and topgallant-mast to the fragment left of the original spar, securing it with back-stays and preventers on the port and starboard sides before getting up the shrouds. These latter, of course, would have now to be reduced, in order to suit the diminished height of the new mast, whereon the topsail-yard would have to do duty for the old fore-yard, and the topgallant one be transferred into a topsail-yard.

Mr Marline seemed rather proud of his handiwork; so, this made him more conversational than anyone I had yet tried to talk to.

"Ha, Tom," he said, "you're just in time to see us cross our yards again—not a bad job, eh?"

"No, sir," I replied; "have you been long over it?"

"Ever since daylight."

"And have all of you been equally busy?" I asked.

"Bless you, yes! As for Cuffee, he roused out poor Moggridge early in the middle watch, to help him to fix the galley, bribing him with the promise of some hot coffee. That started the hands; for, the boatswain must needs hail Adze to see after the pumps, and hearing them stirring about, I came on deck and employed the idlers in getting the spars alongside, as the sea was as calm as a pond. Then, I set them to work unreeving the gear and making things snug for setting up our jury-masts, of which this is the first—a downright seamanlike piece of work I call it."

"So it is, sir," said I to please him, seeing him looking up at the new foremast admiringly; "and, I suppose, Mr Marline, when you've finished rigging this, you'll begin setting up a new mainmast."

"Aye, my boy, and a mizzen too after that! You shall see the old barquey spreading her canvas bravely again before I have done with her."

Presently, Adze called out that he had made the pumps act at last.

This brought down Captain Miles from the poop; when, a party of the sailors at once setting to work, the bilge-water soon rose from below and flowed in a stream in the scuppers.

Half an hour's spell served to make the pumps suck dry, showing that the main hold of the ship was clear; and, seeing this, the captain turned round and hailed Mr Marline with a triumphant shout.

"There, Marline," he cried, "what do you think of that, eh? Who was right and who was wrong?"

"Well, sir, you were a true prophet this time," replied the first mate equally well pleased at the result, although it went against his own prognostication; "I only hope you'll get the fore-peak free as easily; for, then, we'll float on an even keel."

"All right, my boy, so we will," said Captain Miles; and he then ordered the hands to bend the end of the hose down into the forepart of the ship below that part of the forecastle where the men bunked, the other end of the hose being attached to the pump cylinder.

This job was a heavier one than that of clearing the main hold, the men having to be relieved in spells; but, after several hours' hard work, the bows of the ship were sensibly lightened of the extra water ballast we had carried here, and by the afternoon this part of the vessel was also clear.

Meanwhile, however, Jake had announced that breakfast was ready and on the cabin table. This was the first hot meal we had had the chance of partaking of now for four days, and it may be imagined with what gusto we all enjoyed it I should add that, Captain Miles, liking good living himself, took care that the men all round had an equally good spread, sharing his own private stores liberally, so that those in the forecastle fared as sumptuously as we did.

The captain did this out of his own innate good nature; but, had he been generous merely as an act of policy, it could not have served him in better stead, the sailors working all the afternoon and far into the night with all the greater willingness in setting the ship to rights as a return for the kindness he had displayed. None wanted driving to make them stick to their several tasks.

Mr Marline had believed that when the fore-peak was clear of water the Josephine, which until then had her bows almost level with the sea, would have recovered her proper floatation; but, although her head now rose, she displayed a decided list to starboard that became the more apparent as her head became elevated more and more.

"Some of the cargo must have shifted," said Captain Miles; and with him, true sailor as he was, to discover a fault was to suggest a remedy.

"We must take off the battens of the main hatch," he cried. "Mr Marline, stop rigging those sticks for a bit. It is far more important for our stowage to be true before we take any more of the heavy spars on board; for, if we meet with any bad weather, we may turn the turtle again and not come out of it so cleverly as we managed on the first occasion!"

"All right, sir," replied the mate, ordering the hands under his orders on the forecastle to move aft, where, under the captain's directions, the hatches were taken off and the cargo exposed to view.

A pair of shears were then rigged up over the hold, on which a running tackle with blocks and falls was rigged; when, after several puncheons of rum had been hoisted out, it was found that the lover tier of the cargo had lurched over at the time the ship careened.

It took many hours to alter the arrangement of the sugar casks below, the rum having to be all hoisted on deck first; but, the hands working zealously, the job was at last accomplished, the ship soon afterwards righting properly, with her deck now horizontal to the plane of the water instead of being at an angle with it as before.

The puncheons of rum were then again lowered down and stowed securely and the hatches put on again. The men after this ceased their toils for the day, it being close on to sunset.

On the third day, the rigging of the jury foremast was completed and the head-gear all attached to it, new sails being bent to the yards in the place of those that had been blown away. Fresh halliards and running ropes were also rove, so that on an emergency, if the wind arose suddenly, we could have made sail on the one mast, and thus made a shift of battling with the elements.

Fortunately, however, the weather remained beautifully calm, only a slight breeze springing up for a short time during the first hours of the morning watch. The light wind had hardly sufficient power to give motion to the bull of the vessel, and so the task of setting up the other masts and rigging was satisfactorily proceeded with.

The mainmast caused the greatest trouble, the remains of the heel having first to be taken out; although Mr Marline luckily thought of this when we were re-stowing the cargo on the previous day. Otherwise, we would have had a second sorting out of the contents of the hold.

The shears used for raising the rum puncheons not being strong enough to lift the mainmast, which was a very heavy piece of timber weighing several hundredweights, the main and fore-yards, with the mizzen topmast, were set up as a triangle over the place where the spar had to be stepped—the ends of the yards being fixed firmly against the bulwarks on either side and lashed together at the top. This "crab" was then raised in the air by a tackle and purchase, the falls of which were brought to the capstan and run up by the crew as if they were weighing anchor.

Then, the mainmast was slung just about its balancing centre and hauled inboard through the broken bulwarks—which had not yet been restored on purpose until all the spars were hoisted in.

The falls were now again manned; and, the sailors heaving away with one of their animating choruses, up went the spar in the air above the vacant hole in the deck from where the old part of the heel had been removed—guys being belayed on either side to make it drop in true when it was right over the place for its reception.

It did not take long to fix it now perpendicularly; although, as the spar had been severed some feet from the deck, the new end of it was more slender than the old, and so required packing round with pieces of wood driven in by mallets to make it secure.

Next, the standing rigging was set up after being first shortened; and Adze had a good deal of blacksmith's work to do in making fresh bolts and eyes, converting Cuffee's galley into a temporary forge for this purpose. All the ropes and blocks having been carefully collected beforehand and sorted, this labour did not consume half the time that one would have thought.

On the fifth day, the mizzen-mast was also got back into its place.

Then the yards were crossed and sails bent on the mainmast; and the Josephine appeared to show nearly as much top-hamper as she did before the gale, only that all the masts were much shorter than before, the foremast especially being only an apology for the former spar.

However, the change made a wonderful improvement in the appearance of the ship; and when the broken bulwarks were patched up, which was done on the last day of the week, she was herself again.

On the Sunday that followed the righting of the ship we had our prayers on the poop as usual, Captain Miles returning especial thanks to the great Ruler of the deep for all the mercies we had received; and, as a fair wind sprung up in the evening of the same day from the south, we set sail once more, moving away from the spot where we had been refitting.

"I don't think," said Captain Miles, "that we've drifted twenty miles either way since this day week; for there's no current hereabout, and we've had little or no wind."

"We're then still about the centre of the Sargasso Sea," observed Mr Marline.

"Aye," responded the other; "so Master Tom will have ample opportunities within the next fortnight or so for studying all you told him about the Gulf-weed, for I've no doubt we'll presently pass through lots of it."

"Shall you shape a straight course for the Channel, sir?" asked the first mate, looking at his watch as he did so in a very self-satisfied sort of way, it seemed.

"You may well observe that time-piece of yours carefully," said the captain with a sigh, although he smiled as he spoke. "On that little article depends all our navigation—that is, until we meet with some passing vessel to correct our reckoning, and I don't suppose we shall come across many of these, for we're out of the track of all voyaging over this part of the Atlantic save those homeward-bound from the Cape. I intend to make for Flores, the westernmost island of the Azores, as we're short of water; besides, by my pursuing that course we shall get up into the trades, and bye and bye fetch the Gulf Stream, which will render our passage shorter to the Channel."

"Very well, we'll see," said Mr Marline, unconsciously using his old stereotyped form of answer to almost everything.

"I believe," cried Captain Miles laughing, "that if anybody asked you to accept a thousand pounds you'd reply, 'I'll see about it!'"

"You just try me and see," replied the first mate drily to this remark, joining in the captain's laugh; but I noticed that the other did not take up the offer.

Through our detention by the calm, in addition to the scurrying to and fro we had during the hurricane and the long time we remained a helpless log on the waters, it was now considerably more than two months since we had left the West Indies; and, as the Josephine did not sail so well now, besides having light and variable winds, it took us more than another fortnight to reach Flores and sight the Morro Grande—a mountain some three thousand feet in height, rising high in the clouds above Santa Cruz, the capital of the island.

But, for days before this, we sailed through that wonderful Sargasso Sea, the circumstances of whose being Mr Marline had explained to me during the fearful night we passed clinging to the capsized hull of the ship, exposed to the cruel wash of the pitiless waves; and, as we ploughed over this submerged meadow of sea-weed in the centre of the Atlantic, I could not help recalling the mangrove swamps and lagoons of the tropic island in which my childhood had been passed, wondering the while, too, whether the Josephine would not be reported as lost through the protraction of her voyage—for she was expected to reach England by the middle of September at the latest, and it was now October.

Why, if news came to Grenada that we were given up at Lloyd's, poor dad and mother would be in a terrible way about me, I knew!

The day of the receipt of such intelligence would be a sad one at Mount Pleasant, where all had loved me and would miss me now more than ever.

These thoughts, however, were but idle fancies, I reflected when we sighted Flores; for, even if we had been given up, the news would now soon be sent on that the old ship was still to the fore. So, when Captain Miles had taken in fresh water and provisions, besides buying a new chronometer, and then shaped a course direct for the English Channel, I looked forward anxiously to relieving my parent's anxiety as much as I did at the realisation of my boyhood's dream of seeing London and going to school.



CHAPTER NINETEEN.

DAD.

My tale will soon come to an end.

After leaving Santa Cruz, we had a fine steady wind from the north-west, right on our quarter, all the way to the chops of the Channel; and this enabled us to accomplish the intervening twelve hundred miles of distance in ten days' time.

We were equally lucky in getting up to the river, although it was well on in the month of October, when easterly winds generally prevail; for, without requiring the assistance of a tug, after making the Lizard, we passed up towards London in fine style, walking at a great rate by Dunnose, Beachy Head, Dungeness, and all those other landmarks that mariners know so well.

When we got to Gravesend, I had a great surprise; for, who on earth do you think should come off to the ship as we anchored in the stream, waiting for a pilot to take us up the river to the Saint Katherine's Docks, where we were bound? The very last person in the world whom you or I could possibly have expected to meet me there!

Who do you think?

Why, dad!

Yes—he; and none other.

It seems that shortly after I sailed in the Josephine, the gentleman who had made him an offer to purchase Mount Pleasant when I was ill—and then backed out of the bargain because dad would not immediately come to terms—renewed the proposal, and dad accepted at once.

Then, as he had nothing remaining to keep him out in the West Indies, he took passages in the next mail steamer home for my mother and my sisters and himself, arriving over here even before I could have expected to reach England had all gone well with our ship.

When they got to London, however, news came from Lloyd's that the Josephine was lost, as our boats, which had been swept away in the hurricane, had been picked up by a homeward-bound ship.

Needless to say, dad and all my folk were heart-broken at hearing this.

Hardly, however, had they become reconciled to my death, as they thought, than a fresh piece of intelligence was passed on from Flores, narrating how we had touched there, all well on board; so, as soon as we were reported as being sighted in the Channel, dad was on the watch to be the first to greet me, coming down specially to Gravesend to board the ship as soon as she entered the river.

I need not describe the meeting with dad in the first place, nor the way in which my mother and sisters, dear little Tot included, welcomed me?

Hardly!

Jake must have the last word, though; for, it was only through his faithfulness that I had been preserved during all our perils on the sea.

You must remember that, not only did he save me from drowning in the first instance, when the vessel capsized; but, it was mainly through his watchful attentions that my life was saved during the time that I was exposed on the hull of the ship while she was on her beam-ends.

"Golly, Massa Eastman," he cried out to dad the moment he put foot on board the Josephine, "I'se look arter Mass' Tom, as I promiss, suah, and here he am, sah, safe an' sound!"

So I was; but, in spite of that, I have never forgotten my experiences of the Sargasso Sea, nor The White Squall.

THE END.