eary sailors, who had only just retired
after more than twenty hours of duty, before they had had time to close
their eyes in their first sleep, but they came out of the forecastle
willingly enough, well knowing the peril the ship was in; and, down
below the main-hatch they bumbled after Mr Meldrum and the carpenter,
glad that it was not for another spell of pumping for which they had
been called up.

Ben Boltrope was found to be right. After tossing to one side the bales
and boxes and heavy masses of iron that filled the midship section of
the hold, they found a great gap between the timbers through which the
water was spouting in at the rate of some hundred gallons an hour--the
cause of the hole being apparent enough in a long iron girder which had
got jammed against the side of the ship, end outwards, and in the
working of the ship had made its way clean through the strakes and
planking--just as if it had been an auger, the hole had been bored so
round and neat!

This orifice was now carefully plugged and battened over; and when the
pumps were again rigged and the vessel cleared it was found that she had
ceased to make water to any appreciable extent.

"Thank God for that!" said Captain Dinks heartily. "I own I was wrong,
for I was certain that the rudder-post was the seat of mischief:-- the
ship was bound to leak there!"

"It was a very natural thought of yours," said Mr Meldrum, to soothe
his sense of defeat. "I would have held to the same but for the
carpenter."

"Ah! he's a roight good man, sorr," chimed in Mr McCarthy, "and a
cridit to the sarvice that brought him up. Sure, an' he's a sailor ivry
inch ov him, from the crown of his hid to the sole of his fut!"

The sky was still obscured by clouds and the stormy billows were tossing
about, striving to bear down the ship and beat her to pieces; but she
bravely held her own, head to sea, and rode out the gale all that day
and night, as if she had been at anchor, although drifting steadily the
while in a south-easterly direction, the impulse of the waves and the
force of the wind on her hull carrying her thither.

It was the same the next day; but, on the third morning, the gale
somewhat moderated, although still blowing with considerable force from
the northward and westward, and under Mr Meldrum's advice, which
Captain Dinks now eagerly sought on every occasion, sail was got upon
the ship and she was allowed to run before the wind, hoping that the
ves