ass it and yet it might
not be seen, or the gale, continuing, might drive her on with headlong
force, so that she might not be able to haul up in time to get under its
lee. Twelve or fourteen hours would decide the point, perhaps even
less.

The wind had begun to moderate slightly, and some of the older hands on
board, accustomed to the southern ocean, prognosticated a change of
weather. All prayed that it might come. Night returned, but it brought
no rest to the labouring crew. Every man and boy on board, except those
on the look-out, were engaged in pumping or baling, unless lying down
recruiting their strength for renewed exertions. They were working
spell and spell, knowing full well that unless such were done, the ship
could not be kept afloat. As she had before being recommissioned
undergone a thorough repair, no one could account for the leak. Many
did anything but bless the ship-builders. Some declared that the outer
coat of wood was rotten, and that the inner one of iron had become
corroded and had just been patched up to deceive the eye of the
surveyor.

"Bedad! I belave it must be one of thim big fishes with the long noses
has run against us, an' drilled a hole before he could get off again,"
said rat Casey to his shipmate Peter; "or, maybe, the big say sarpint
was swimmin' by and gave us a whisk of his tail unbeknown."

"Me tink, Massa Pat, dey make you officer, if eber we get into harbour,
if you swear to dat."

"Faith, me boy, swear, is it?" observed Pat. "It's just th' sort of
yarn a dockyard matey would swear to, if only to plaise his superiors;
but there's one thing I believe, an' that is, that the wood an' iron are
both rotten. Bad luck to thim who didn't repair the damage whin they
found it out! You are of the same opinion, though it wouldn't have
become ye to say so. All you'd got to do was to find out where the hole
was, an' ye did it like a brave man, an' sure I'd be sorry not to get
home, if it were only because you'd be afther losin' your reward."

What other reflections might have been cast on the dockyard officials it
is impossible to say, when a grating sound was heard, and the ship
quivered fore and aft. For a moment her way seemed to be stopped, and
the cry rose from many a mouth, "We are lost! we are lost!" A
tremendous sea came rolling up astern.

"Hold on, for your lives!" shouted Adair, and the order was echoed along
the decks. The wave struck the vessel's stern.