"Just one minute, sir, I'll get some hot water."
Fortunately there was hot water in the galley.
"There you are, sir, put your hand in the bucket. No, it is not too hot. There, see, I hold my hand in it."
Satisfied that there was no danger of cooking it, he pulled the rag off, and thrust his hand into the bucket. I noticed that there was no blood to speak of. I said, "Captain, did the spike go through your hand?"
"Hell, yes, man, about three inches."
I suggested many remedies, such as washing it with saline solution and bandaging with oakum and so on. But he would have none of them, and insisted on having the rag tied around, assuring me that it would be well in a day or so. He kept on deck most of the first watch, but was evidently in great pain.
"I think that we are running into the doldrums from the look of those clouds to the eastward," said he.
"We have one thing in our favor," I replied; "we should have a three-knot current to the southward according to the pilot chart."
"You should not rely on what those fellows in Washington put onto paper. If you do you will never get anywhere."
At five o'clock in the morning it was raining. There is no place in the world where it rains as it does around the Equator; it seems as if the celestial sluice-gates had gotten beyond control. We were becalmed, and in the doldrums, with not a breath of air. Usually this lasts for five or six days.