ou skipper. You have an ugly job to face, but do
your best."

"Skipper, be I? Then right you are!" answered Billy, with a cheerful
smile. "An' the first order is for you and Master Prosper here to
tumble below an' heft ballast for your lives. Be the two specimens
safe?"

"Eh?" It took my father a second, maybe, to fit this description to
Messrs. Badcock and Fett. "Ah, to be sure! Yes, I left them safe
and unhurt."

"What's no good never comes to harm," said Billy. "Send 'em on deck,
then, and I'll put 'em on to the pumps."

We left Billy face to face with a job which indeed looked to be past
hope. The wheel had gone, and with it the binnacle; and where these
had stood, from the stump of the broken mizzen-mast right aft to the
taffrail, there yawned a mighty hole fringed with splintered
deck-planking. The explosion had gutted after-hold, after-cabin,
sail-locker, and laid all bare even to the stern-post. `Twas a
marvel the stern itself had not been blown out: but as a set-off
against this mercy--and the most grievous of all, though as yet we
had not discovered it--we had lost our rudder-head, and the rudder
itself hung by a single pintle.

"Nevertheless," maintained my father, as we toiled together upon the
ballast, "I took the only course, and in like circumstances I would
venture it again. The captain very properly thought first of his
ship: but I preferred to think that we were in a hurry."

"How did you contrive it?" I asked, pausing to ease my back, and
listening for a moment to the sound of hatchets on deck.
(They were cutting away the tangle of the mizzen rigging.)

"Very simply," said he. "There must have been a dozen hammering on
the after-hatch, and I guessed they would have another dozen looking
on and offering advice: so I sent Halliday to fetch a keg of powder,
and poured about half of it on the top stair of the companion.
The rest Halliday took and heaped on a sea-chest raised on a couple
of tables close under the deck. We ran up our trains on a couple of
planks laid aslant, and touched off at a signal. There were two
explosions, but we timed them so prettily that I believe they went
off in one."

"They did," said I.

"My wits must have been pretty clear, then--at the moment.
Afterwards (I don't mind confessing to you) I lay for some minutes
where the explosion flung me. In my hurry I had overdone the dose."

We had been shovelling for an hour and more. Already the ship began