judging by the actual
results, they could not have been very powerful."

"And I also," said the Captain, "thank God we dug out the big ones."
He scowled forlornly. "Dr. Cullen says I am in for a week of this,
Percival. You don't think so, do you?"

Percival smiled. "I am more or less of an expert on explosives, sir," he
replied.

"Umph," grunted Captain Trigger. "I see. Just the same, I think I'll be
up and about by tomorrow. If I were your age, young man, you can bet I
wouldn't be lying here in this bed."

"On the other hand, if I were your age, Captain Trigger," said Percival,
"I'd probably have sense enough to do exactly what the doctor ordered."

Captain Trigger's mouth fell open.

"Well, of all the damned--" he began, and then swallowed hard.

CHAPTER VI.

For three days and nights the Doraine drifted lazily in a calm and
rippling sea, always to the southward. The days were bright and warm,
the nights black and chill. It was the spring of the year in that zone.
Without adequate navigation instruments, Mr. Mott was forced to rely to
a great extent on speculation. He was able to make certain calculations
with reasonable accuracy, but they were of little real significance.
It was, of course, possible to determine the general direction in which
they were drifting, and the speed. They were slowly but surely edging
into the strong west wind drift. The Falkland Islands would soon be off
to the right, with South Georgia and the Sandwich group farther to the
south and east, the southernmost tip of Africa to the left.

Not a sail had been sighted, not a sign of smoke appeared on the
spotless horizon. At regular intervals the gun on the forward deck
boomed thrice in quick succession, startling the lifeless hulk into a
sort of spasmodic vitality. Then she would sink back once more into
the old, irksome lethargy, incapable of resisting the gentlest wave,
submissive to the whim of the slightest breeze. The ship's carpenter
and his men were making slow headway in the well-nigh impossible task of
repairing the rudder. Attempts were being made to rig up makeshift sails
to replace those licked from the supplemental spars by flames that had
earned considerable progress along the roof of the upper deck building
before they were subdued. Blackened, charred masts and yards, stripped
of rigging, reared themselves like pines at the edge of a fire-swept
forest. Sail-makers and riggers laboured stubbornly, but the work