ss in her now than when we began pumping, and that means we win."

A few hours later, after the donkey-engine had kept on its steady
pumping, Chips made another inspection, and came up to where Fitz and
Poole were together, pulling a very long face.

"Why, what's the matter, Chips?" cried Fitz anxiously. "You don't mean
to say that anything is wrong?"

"Horribly, gentlemen," cried the man. "It's always my luck! Chucking
away my chances! Why, she's as good as new!"

"Well, what more do you want? Isn't that good enough for you?"

"Yes, sir, it's good enough; but Mr Butters here and me, we was half
asleep. We ought to have formed ourselves into a company--Winks and
Co., or Butters and Co., or Butters and Winks, or Winks and Butters, or
Co. and Co."

"Why not Cocoa and Cocoa?" said Fitz, laughing.

"Anyhow you like, gentlemen, only we ought to have done it. Bought the
gunboat cheap, and there was a fortune for us."

"Never mind that," said Poole. "You'll be all right, Chips. Don Ramon
will be presenting you with a brass tobacco-box, or something else, if
you get her off."

"Go and ast him to order it at once, so as to have it ready, for we
shall have her off to-morrow as soon as them 'hogany lubbers have got
the steam up."

"You don't mean that?" cried Poole.

"Ask Mr Butters here, and see what he says."

"Yes," said the boatswain coolly; "and I thought we should have to
lighten her by a couple of hundred tons or so. But it makes a man feel
very proud of being an English sailor. These half-breeds here give up
at once. Why, if she'd had an English crew aboard, that cable wouldn't
have stopped round the screw, and the lads wouldn't have sat down to
smoke cigarettes and holloa. Why, they might have had her off a score
of times."

"But what about getting her safely into the channel again?" said Poole.

"What about getting old Burgess aboard to con her; she going slow with a
couple of fellows at work with the lead in the chains? Why, it's all as
easy as buttering a bit of biscuit."

Not quite, but the next evening the gunboat was well out in deep water,
comparatively undamaged, and flying Don Ramon's colours, making her way
towards Velova Bay, towing a whole regiment of boats, the _Teal_ proudly
leading under easy sail.

CHAPTER FIFTY SEVEN.

A STARTLER.

"Ah," said Don Ramon to the skipper, the morning after their arrival,
"if only that gun were perfect!"

"Well, it ought to be in two