n 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