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"Not quite so bad as that, sir," sang out the voice of Grummet in the distance, the thick vapour lending it a far-away sound. "The vessel is recovering herself again, and the cylinder cover's blown off, sir that's all!"
'Gad, it's a queer life for a child in this place, and no mistake." Two or three mornings after the arrival of the Ladybird, the solitary prisoner of the Grummet Rock noticed mysterious movements along the shore of the island settlement. The prison boats, which had put off every morning at sunrise to the foot of the timbered ranges on the other side of the harbour, had not appeared for some days.
"Faith, the skipper is foine and flourishin'," he informed me, "an' the ould barquey as good an' as sound as ivver she was. Do you ricollict ould Stokes?" "Of course I do," I said. "Is he still chief?" "No, no; he retired a year ago or more on a pinsion which the company gave him for his long service; an' little Grummet ye rimimber him? well, he's promoted, sure, to ould Stokes' billet.
"I closed all the stop valves up here the moment I knew what had happened; and the men below in the stoke-hold have cut off the supply from the main pipe, while Mr Links has gone into the screw well to disconnect the propeller." "Very good, Grummet. So they be all right down below?" "All right, sir." "Thank God for that! How about the fires?"
The vessel had, as Grummet remarked, altered her course; running off rapidly before the wind, and consequently towards the land; and those who knew nothing about nautical matters would have supposed that her commander had at length given up the contest, and was about to run her on shore. But we knew better.
The rising moon shone softly on the bay beneath them, and touched with her white light the summit of the Grummet Rock. "That is the general opinion, I know," returned Vickers. "But consider the life they lead. Good God!" he added, with sudden vehemence, as Frere paused to look at the bay.
The ship, thus deprived of her head-sail, luffed into the wind; and the moment that the rest of her canvas shook, away it came also, leaving her helpless and unmanageable, with the sea sweeping her deck fore and aft. "Now stand by, men," shouted Grummet, "and each one do his best for the poor souls; for they were never nearer to death's door than they will be in another two minutes.
The machinery, I noticed when passing through the flat to the stoke- hold, which was, of course, on a still lower level, was working away pretty easily, the piston in the cylinder moving steadily up and down, and the eccentric, which always appeared to me as a sort of bandy-legged giant, executing its extraordinary double-shuffle in a more graceful fashion than when we were going at full speed, as it performed its allotted task of curvetting the up-and-down motion of the piston into a circular one, thus making the shaft revolve; while Grummet, the third engineer, who was still watching the throttle valve, hand on lever, had a far easier job than previously, when we were running with full power before wind and sea, and rolling and pitching at every angle every minute.
There was also one grummet of round-shot at every gun, besides the racks being filled. Each gun's crew slept at the gun and its opposite, thus dividing the people pretty equally on both sides of the deck. Those who were stationed below, slept below. I think it probable that, as the night grew cool, as it always does on the fresh waters, some of the men stole below to get warmer berths.
A chimney was soon fitted, made by Kerr out of the tin lining of one of the biscuit-cases, and passed through a close-fitting tin grummet sewn into the canvas of the roof just between the keels of the two boats, and the smoke nuisance was soon a thing of the past. Later on, another old oil-drum was made to surround this chimney, so that two pots could be cooked at once on the one stove.
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