When we filled up, we came back to see how the _Martha_ was progressing."

"And thinking we was going home with our recruits," Sparrowhawk slipped
in. "Lord lumme, that Miss Lackland ain't never satisfied. 'I'll take
'em on the _Martha_,' says she, 'and you can go back and fill up again.'"

"But I told her it couldn't be done," Munster went on. "I told her the
_Martha_ hadn't a license for recruiting. 'Oh,' she said, 'it can't be
done, eh?' and she stood and thought a few minutes."

"And I'd seen her think before," cried Sparrowhawk, "and I knew at wunst
that the thing was as good as done."

Munster lighted his cigarette and resumed.

"'You see that spit,' she says to me, 'with the little ripple breaking
around it? There's a current sets right across it and on it. And you
see them bafflin' little cat's-paws? It's good weather and a falling
tide. You just start to beat out, the two of you, and all you have to do
is miss stays in the same baffling puff and the current will set you
nicely aground.'"

"'That little wash of sea won't more than start a sheet or two of
copper,' says she, when Munster kicked," Sparrowhawk explained. "Oh,
she's no green un, that girl."

"'Then I'll rescue your recruits and sail away--simple, ain't it?' says
she," Munster continued. "'You hang up one tide,' says she; 'the next is
the big high water. Then you kedge off and go after more recruits.
There's no law against recruiting when you're empty.' 'But there is
against starving 'em,' I said; 'you know yourself there ain't any _kai-
kai_ to speak of aboard of us, and there ain't a crumb on the _Martha_.'"

"We'd all been pretty well on native _kai-kai_, as it was," said
Sparrowhawk.

"'Don't let the _kai-kai_ worry you, Captain Munster,' says she; 'if I
can find grub for eighty-four mouths on the _Martha_, the two of you can
do as much by your two vessels. Now go ahead and get aground before a
steady breeze comes up and spoils the manoeuvre. I'll send my boats the
moment you strike. And now, good-day, gentlemen.'"

"And we went and did it," Sparrowhawk said solemnly, and then emitted a
series of chuckling noises. "We laid over, starboard tack, and I pinched
the _Emily_ against the spit. 'Go about,' Captain Munster yells at me;
'go about, or you'll have me aground!' He yelled other things, much
worse. But I didn't mind. I missed stays, pretty as you please, and the
_Flibberty_ drifted down on him and fouled him, and w