d on at the pump, doing double work;
but even his flesh and blood had its breaking strain; and at last he
could work no more.

He leaned dizzily up against the pump for a minute or so, and then with
an effort he pulled his still unconscious companion away and laid him on
the dry floor of a deck-house. There was a pannikin of cold stewed tea
slung from a hook in there, and half a sea biscuit on one of the bunks.
He ate and drank greedily, and then went out again along the streaming
decks to work, so far as his single pair of hands could accomplish such
a thing, at getting the huge derelict once more in sailing trim.

The shovels meanwhile had been doing their work, and although the list
was not entirely gone, the vessel at times (when a sea buttressed her
up) floated almost upright. The gale was still blowing, but it had
veered to the southward, and on the afternoon of that day Kettle called
all hands on deck and got her under way again, and found to his joy that
the coal-trimmer had some elementary notion of taking a wheel.

"I rate you as Mate," he said in his gratitude, "and you'll draw salvage
pay according to your rank. I was going to make Mr. Philipps my
officer, but--"

"Don't apologize," said Dayton-Philipps. "I don't know the name of one
string from another, and I'm quite conscious of my deficiency. But just
watch me put in another spell at those infernal pumps."

The list was of less account now, and the vessel was once more under
command of her canvas. It was the leak which gave them most cause for
anxiety. Likely enough it was caused by the mere wrenching away of a
couple of rivets. But the steady inpour of water through the holes would
soon have made the ship grow unmanageable and founder if it was not
constantly attended to. Where the leak was they had not a notion.
Probably it was deep down under the cargo of grain, and quite
unget-at-able; but anyway it demanded a constant service at the pumps to
keep it in check, and this the bone-weary crew were but feebly competent
to give. They were running up into the latitude of the Bay, too, and
might reasonably expect that "Biscay weather" would not take much from
the violence of the existing gale.

However, the dreaded Bay, fickle as usual, saw fit to receive them at
first with a smiling face. The gale eased to a plain smiling wind; the
sullen black clouds dissolved away into fleckless blue, and a sun came
out which peeled their arms and faces as they worke