t job their labours came to an end. All that remained was to
connect up the engines, and to get food and water. The skipper and four
men dealt with the Malay boat-builder by night chiefly; it was no time
to haggle over the price of sago and dried fish. The others stayed
aboard and replaced piston, piston-rod, cylinder-cover, cross-head, and
bolts, with the aid of the faithful donkey-engine. The cylinder-cover
was hardly steam-proof, and the eye of science might have seen in the
connecting-rod a flexure something like that of a Christmas-tree candle
which has melted and been straightened by hand over a stove, but, as Mr.
Wardrop said, "She didn't hit anything."

As soon as the last bolt was in place, men tumbled over one another in
their anxiety to get to the hand starting-gear, the wheel and worm,
by which some engines can be moved when there is no steam aboard. They
nearly wrenched off the wheel, but it was evident to the blindest eye
that the engines stirred. They did not revolve in their orbits with any
enthusiasm, as good machines should; indeed, they groaned not a little;
but they moved over and came to rest in a way which proved that they
still recognised man's hand. Then Mr. Wardrop sent his slaves into the
darker bowels of the engine-room and the stoke-hole, and followed them
with a flare-lamp. The boilers were sound, but would take no harm from
a little scaling and cleaning. Mr. Wardrop would not have any one
over-zealous, for he feared what the next stroke of the tool might show.
"The less we know about her now," said he, "the better for us all,
I'm thinkin'. Ye'll understand me when I say that this is in no sense
regular engineerin'."

As his raiment, when he spoke, was his grey beard and uncut hair, they
believed him. They did not ask too much of what they met, but polished
and tallowed and scraped it to a false brilliancy.

"A lick of paint would make me easier in my mind," said Mr. Wardrop,
plaintively. "I know half the condenser-tubes are started; and the
propeller-shaftin''s God knows how far out of the true, and we'll need
a new air-pump, an' the main-steam leaks like a sieve, and there's worse
each way I look; but--paint's like clothes to a man, 'an ours is near
all gone."

The skipper unearthed some stale ropy paint of the loathsome green that
they used for the galleys of sailing-ships, and Mr. Wardrop spread it
abroad lavishly to give the engines self-respect.

His own was returning day by day,