"Say a month!" suggested the commander caustically.

"Say three days for the sake of argument. Then I can put her to rights.
I daren't take down a thing while she's rolling twenty-five and more,
and I've got to take things down! Why, man, the engine-room is all
pollution from gratings to bilge; if I loosened one more bolt than is
loose a'ready her whole insides 'ud take charge and dance quadrilles
until we drowned!"

"You won't try to make Bombay?"

"I'll try to give ye steam as far as the far side o' yon reef. After
that I wash my hands of a' responsibility!"

"Oh, very well. Mr. White!"

The sublieutenant hauled himself in turn to windward. Curley Crothers
gave the wheel a half-spoke and looked as if he had no interest in
anything. Joe Byng in the chains bowed his head and groaned inwardly;
his sticky, spray-washed lead seemed all-absorbing.

"Tell that black robber to hurry aboard, unless he wants me to come in
without him."

The little boat had drifted fast before the wind, and the sublieutenant
had to bellow through a megaphone to where the three men bailed and the
ragged oarsmen swung their weight against the storm. The man of ebony,
who would be pilot and disgrace the Navy, balanced on a thwart with
wide-spread naked toes and yelled an ululating answer. With his rags
out-blown in the monsoon he looked like a sea wraith come to life. The
big gongs clanged again, and the Puncher drifted rather than drove down
on the smaller craft. A hand line caught the pilot precisely in the
face. He grabbed it frantically, fell headlong in the sea, and was
hauled aboard.

"He says he wants a tow for that boat of his," reported the
sublieutenant. "Said it in English, too--seems he knows more than he
pretends."

"Missed it, by gad, by just about five minutes!" said the commander
aloud but to himself. "Well--the bargain's made, so it can't be helped.
That boat's sinking! Throw 'em a line, quick!"

The pilot's crew displayed no overdone affection for their craft, and
there was no struggle to the last to leave it. One by one--whichever
could grab the line first was the first to come--they were hauled
through the thundering waves and their boat was left to sink. Then,
before they could adjust their unaccustomed feet to the different
balance of the Puncher's heaving deck, the gongs clanged and the
destroyer leaped ahead like a dripping sea-soused water beetle, into her
utmost speed that instant.

All conscious of his new-