"Perpetual is too strong a word for the occasion," he decided at length. "Let us say rather that the experience to which I have previously referred has taught me that under certain circumstances—such as the license practised after the tedium of a long voyage—a band of men who recognize no authority save the strong arm may be induced to excesses they would not otherwise attempt."
"Then we don't shoodt no goats?" asked Peter sorrowfully.
"On the contrary, friend Peter. We most certainly shall. 'Tis not only a question of securing you the opportunity of sport which I promised you, but of varying the diet of my crew, with an eye to maintaining all hands in good health at a time when we can not afford incapacity. Tomorrow morning I shall be occupied in organizing the work of careening the ship, so that her bottom may be cleaned; but in the afternoon we will take a party of beaters to aid us and arrange a battue in the Continental fashion. By that time, I anticipate, Captain Flint will have returned to his senses—recovered from his debauch, in other words. If he has not——"
He shrugged, and I gathered that the contingency would not be a happy one for Flint.
"You will excuse me," he went on, "if I return to my studies. I have much upon my mind."
We bade him good night and went to our staterooms, weary enough from the unwonted exercise of rowing. As I shut my door I noted that he was measuring distances in the Caribbean with calipers and jotting figures upon the margin of the chart.
In the morning, as he had said, all hands were occupied with the task of careening the ship. In the first place she was to be hauled over to starboard to expose her larboard bottom, and all her guns and movable stores and heavy equipment were shifted to starboard to give her a list on that side. Then her yards were cockbilled to keep them clear of the water, and heavy cables were run from her masts to the shore, looped around trees and carried back aboard, and the crew by main force, a few inches or a foot at a time, canted her over. The tide, as it dropped, aided them by bedding the keel in the estuary's soft mud floor, and gradually the James came to assume a most lopsided appearance.
'Twas when the work had gone so far and was proceeding satisfactorily that my great-uncle bade Martin tell off a dozen hands who were good shots and call away the longboat.
"I marvel that you dare to leave the James in this defenseless condition," I said to him as the longboat pulled off up the anchorage past the silent bulk of the Walrus. "If there was danger last night——"
"—there need not necessarily be danger this afternoon," he interrupted. "'Tis all quiet ashore, and I doubt if there is a man sufficiently sober aboard the Walrus to carry a carton of powder from the magazine."