roe, formerly a builder; and Samuel
Hilary, late agricultural labourer. These four last, as may be readily
understood, owed their election not so much to their superior
qualifications as to the fact that they were red-hot Socialists, full of
plans to enable everybody to enjoy a maximum amount of comfort at the
cost of a minimum of labour; and they proved the sincerity of their
doctrine by securing their own election to posts which freed them from
the necessity to labour for themselves.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

AN IMPORTANT TALK WITH GURNEY.

Immediately upon the completion of the election, Wilde, in the plenitude
of his zeal and eagerness to taste the sweets of power and authority,
insisted on calling a meeting of the council, to meet there and then in
the poop cabin, for the purpose of arranging the proceedings of the
morrow. When the sitting was over, Polson told me that the very first
proposal submitted by the president was that the ship's sails should all
be unbent and taken ashore to form tents for the people to live in; and
that, next, the ship should be stripped to a gantline, and her spars and
rigging--together with as much of her bulwarks as might be required--
worked up into a raft for the conveyance of cargo to the shore. Of
course Polson, with the memory of the conversation that had passed
between him and myself on that very morning still fresh in his mind,
stoutly opposed the proposal, adducing the arguments that I had used
against such a proceeding, and adding to them his own, with such success
that not only was the proposal negatived, but he actually succeeded in
carrying another to the effect that half a dozen hands under me were to
be told off for the express purpose of giving the hull, spars, standing
and running rigging, and sails a thorough overhaul, and executing such
repairs, etcetera, as might be found necessary to bring the ship to, and
maintain her in, a condition of perfect fitness for service at a
moment's notice!

This result achieved, the boatswain was quite content to let Wilde have
his own way in all other respects, with the result that it was quickly
arranged that the hatches should be lifted the first thing after
breakfast on the following morning, the cargo overhauled as far as
possible, and room made by transferring to the shore such portions of it
as were not likely to be injured by exposure to the weather; also that
the live stock, consisting of some three dozen fowls, together