t's carrying on the same game
with the _Teal_."

"Well, we must row, and row hard," said Poole.

"But that may be making worse of it," put in Fitz, who had been
listening and longing to speak.

"Well done," said the boatswain. "Spoke like a young man-o'-war
officer! He's right, Mr Poole, sir. I am longing to take an oar so as
to get warm and dry; but it's no use to try and make what's as bad as
ever it can be, ever so much worse."

"That would puzzle you, Mr Butters," said Fitz, laughing.

"Oh, I don't know, sir," said the boatswain seriously, and perfectly
unconscious of the bull he had made. "We might, you know. What's to be
done, Mr Poole?"

"I can only see one thing to be done," said the skipper's son, "and that
seems so horrible and wanting in spirit."

"What's that?" said Fitz sharply.

"Wait for daylight."

"Oh!" cried Fitz impatiently. "Impossible! We can't do that."

"Well, I don't know, Mr Burnett, sir," growled the boatswain, gazing
round. "Seems to me as if we must. Look here, you Bob Jackson," he
almost roared now, as he turned sharply on the shivering foremast-man
who had just been brought back to life, "what have you got to say for
yourself for getting us all into such a mess as this? I always thought
you were a bit of a swab, and now I knows it."

"Don't bully the poor fellow," cried Poole hotly. "It was an accident."

"Of course it was, sir," cried the boatswain, in an ill-used tone, as he
drew off his jacket and began to wring it as tightly as he could; "and
accidents, as I have heared say, will happen in the best-manned vessels.
One expects them, and has to put up with them when they comes; but
people ought to have accidents at proper times and places, not just when
we've escaped running ourselves down, and the Spanish gunboat's arter
us. Now then, Bob, don't sit there hutched up like a wet monkey. Speak
out like a man."

"I haven't got nothing to say, Mr Butters, sir, only as I am very
sorry, and much obliged to you for saving my life."

"Much obliged! Sorry! Wuss and wuss! Yah! Look at that now! Wuss
and wuss. It never rains but it pours."

"What's the matter?" cried Fitz, for the boatswain had made a sudden
dash with one hand as if striving to catch something that had eluded his
grasp.

"Matter, sir? Why, I squeeged my brass 'bacca-box out of my
jacket-pocket. It was chock-full, and it would go down like lead.
Here, I give up now. Give your orders, Mr Pool