squattered aft to
young Bannister's cabin, whaaur I dried me wi' everything in his bunk,
an' put on every conceivable sort o' rig I found till the blood was
circulatin'. Three pair drawers, I mind I found--to begin upon--an'
I needed them all. It was the coldest cold I remember in all my
experience.

"Syne I went aft to the engine-room. The Grotkau sat on her own tail, as
they say. She was vara shortshafted, an' her gear was all aft. There was
four or five foot o' water in the engine-room slummockin' to and fro,
black an' greasy; maybe there was six foot. The stoke-hold doors were
screwed home, an' the stoke-hold was tight enough, but for a minute the
mess in the engine-room deceived me. Only for a minute, though, an' that
was because I was not, in a manner o' speakin', as calm as ordinar'. I
looked again to mak' sure. 'T was just black wi' bilge: dead watter that
must ha' come in fortuitously, ye ken."

"McPhee, I'm only a passenger," I said, "but you don't persuade me that
six foot o' water can come into an engine-room fortuitously."

"Who's tryin' to persuade one way or the other?" McPhee retorted. "I'm
statin' the facts o' the case--the simple, natural facts. Six or seven
foot o' dead watter in the engine-room is a vara depressin' sight if ye
think there's like to be more comin'; but I did not consider that such
was likely, and so, yell note, I was not depressed."

"That's all very well, but I want to know about the water," I said.

"I've told ye. There was six feet or more there, wi' Calder's cap
floatin' on top."

"Where did it come from?"

"Weel, in the confusion o' things after the propeller had dropped off
an' the engines were racin' an' a', it's vara possible that Calder might
ha' lost it off his head an' no troubled himself to pick it up again. I
remember seem' that cap on him at Southampton."

"I don't want to know about the cap. I'm asking where the water came
from and what it was doing there, and why you were so certain that it
wasn't a leak, McPhee?"

"For good reason-for good an' sufficient reason."

"Give it to me, then."

"Weel, it's a reason that does not properly concern myself only. To
be preceese, I'm of opinion that it was due, the watter, in part to an
error o' judgment in another man. We can a' mak' mistakes."

"Oh, I beg your pardon?"

"I got me to the rail again, an', 'What's wrang?' said Bell, hailin'.

"'She'll do,' I said. 'Send's o'er a hawser, an' a man to steer. I'll
p