work on fruit. We know that."

Then the skipper cursed Mr. Wardrop for importing frivolous side-issues
into the conversation; and the crew cursed one another, and the
Haliotis, the voyage, and all that they knew or could bring to mind.
They sat down in silence on the empty decks, and their eyes burned in
their heads. The green harbour water chuckled at them overside. They
looked at the palm-fringed hills inland, at the white houses above the
harbour road, at the single tier of native craft by the quay, at the
stolid soldiery sitting round the two cannon, and, last of all, at
the blue bar of the horizon. Mr. Wardrop was buried in thought, and
scratched imaginary lines with his untrimmed finger-nails on the
planking.

"I make no promise," he said, at last, "for I can't say what may or may
not have happened to them. But here's the ship, and here's us."

There was a little scornful laughter at this, and Mr. Wardrop knitted
his brows. He recalled that in the days when he wore trousers he had
been Chief Engineer of the Haliotis.

"Harland, Mackesy, Noble, Hay, Naughton, Fink, O'Hara, Trumbull."

"Here, sir!" The instinct of obedience waked to answer the roll-call of
the engine-room.

"Below!"

They rose and went.

"Captain, I'll trouble you for the rest of the men as I want them. We'll
get my stores out, and clear away the shores we don't need, and
then we'll patch her up. My men will remember that they're in the
Haliotis,--under me."

He went into the engine-room, and the others stared. They were used to
the accidents of the sea, but this was beyond their experience. None
who had seen the engine-room believed that anything short of new engines
from end to end could stir the Haliotis from her moorings.

The engine-room stores were unearthed, and Mr. Wardrop's face, red with
the filth of the bilges and the exertion of travelling on his stomach,
lit with joy. The spare gear of the Haliotis had been unusually
complete, and two-and-twenty men, armed with screw-jacks, differential
blocks, tackle, vices, and a forge or so, can look Kismet between the
eyes without winking. The crew were ordered to replace the holding-down
and shaft-bearing bolts, and return the collars of the thrust-block.
When they had finished, Mr. Wardrop delivered a lecture on repairing
compound engines without the aid of the shops, and the men sat about on
the cold machinery. The cross-head jammed in the guides leered at them
drunkenly, but offere