ed useful when he began to fit and connect the disabled
machinery. For the rest, the promenade deck was walled with strong
canvas, while Courtenay and Tollemache gave undivided attention to the
fashioning of several other floating bombs which could be exploded from
the ship. They also provided flexible steam-pipes in places where a
rush might be made if the Indians once secured a footing on the deck,
fore or aft. Steam was kept up constantly in the donkey-boiler, not
alone for the electric light and the daily working of the pumps--as the
_Kansas_ had not blundered over the shoal without straining some of her
plates--but for use against the naked bodies of their possible
assailants.

When day followed day without any sign of hostility, not a man on
board, save Suarez and Tollemache, paid much real heed to the shoreward
peril. Walker, with his hammers and cold chisels, his screw-jacks and
wrenches, was the center of interest. And Walker's swarthy visage wore
a permanent grin, which presaged well for the fulfilment of his
promise. Elsie devoted herself to the hospital. She was thus brought
more in contact with Christobal than with any of the others. Nor did
he make this close acquaintance irksome to her. Always suave and
charming in manner, he exerted himself to be entertaining. Though she
knew full well that if the _Kansas_ reached the open sea again he would
ask her to marry him, he was evidently content to deny himself the
privileges of courtship until a proper time and season.

She was far too wise to appear to avoid Courtenay. Indeed, she was
studiously agreeable to him when they met. She adopted the safe role
of good-fellowship, flattering herself that her own folly would shrink
to nothingness under the hourly castigation thus inflicted. During
this period, Mr. Boyle's changeable characteristics puzzled and amused
her. As he grew stronger, and took part in the active life of the
ship, so did his sudden excess of talkativeness disappear. Once she
happened to overhear his remarks to a couple of Chileans who were told
to swab off the decks. Obviously, they had scamped their work, and
Boyle expostulated. Then she grasped the essential element in Boyle's
composition. He was capable only of a single idea. When he was chief
officer he ceased to be an ordinary man; the corollary was, of course,
that he ceased to use ordinary language.

She was in her cabin, and dared not come out while the tornado raged.