I could have got
below ten minutes earlier, something might have been done; but now we
can do nothing."

"Very well, then," said I; "let San Domingo take two of the uninjured
men to assist him in getting up provisions and water, while you and the
other overhaul the boats, muster their gear, and get everything ready
for putting them into the water as soon as we may venture to do so
without attracting the attention of the brig and tempting her to return
and make an end of us."

While these things were being done, the wounded men assisted each other
down into the little cabin of the schooner, where I dressed their
injuries and coopered them up to the best of my ability with such means
as were to hand; after which, young Sinclair, whose wound was but a
slight one, bathed my forehead, adjusted the strip of displaced skin
where it had been torn away, and strapped it firmly in position with
sticking-plaster.

Meanwhile, the breeze which had sprung up so opportunely to take the
brig out of our immediate neighbourhood not only lasted, but continued
to freshen steadily, with the result that by the time that we had
patched each other up, and were ready to undertake the mournful task of
burying our slain, the wicked but beautiful craft that had inflicted
such grievous injury and loss upon us had slid away over the ocean's
rim, and was hull-down. By this time also the water had risen in the
schooner to such a height that it was knee-deep in the cabin. We lost
no time, therefore, in committing our dead comrades to their last
resting-place in the deep, and then proceeded to get the boats into the
water, and stock them with provisions for our voyage.

Now, with regard to this same voyage, I had thus far been much too busy
to give the matter more than the most cursory consideration, but the
time had now arrived when it became necessary for me to decide for what
point we should steer when the moment arrived for us to take to the
boats. Poor Gowland was, unfortunately, one of the five who had been
killed by the brig's murderous broadside of grape, and I was therefore
deprived of the benefit of his advice and assistance in the choice of a
port for which to steer; but I was by this time a fairly expert
navigator myself, quite capable of doing without assistance if
necessary. I therefore spread out a chart on the top of the skylight,
and, with the help of the log-book, pricked off the position of the
schooner at noon that day, from