“I have an idea,” said I, “and it’s worth a trial. It can do no harm, and if it fails we are no worse off than we were before.”
So saying, I dived below and got out a bottle of oil, through the cork of which I bored three or four holes with a corkscrew, but left the cork in. To the neck of the bottle I made fast the end of about a fathom of marline, and then, going forward, I made fast the other end of the marline to one of the links of the chain-cable by which we were riding to our floating-anchor.
I then sung out to Bob to give her a few fathoms more chain, and as he did so I hove the bottle overboard.
In about five minutes the success of my experiment became manifest. The oil leaked slowly out through the holes I had bored in the cork, and, diffusing itself on the surface of the water, caused the seas to sweep by us either without breaking at all, or, if they did break, it was with such diminished force that no more water came on board.
I had heard of “oil on troubled waters” before, but at the time that I did so I never expected to put its virtues to so thoroughly practical a test.
We went below and got breakfast under weigh; and whilst discussing the meal, our conversation naturally turned upon the appearance of the Albatross.
“There can be no question, I fear, as to its being that scoundrel Johnson and his gang of desperadoes,” said I, half hoping to hear Bob dispute the probability.
But he was quite of my opinion.
“No, no,” said he, “that’s the scamp, never a doubt of it. I noticed the name on his starn; but there warn’t no name of a port where he hails from, for the simple reason that he hails from nowhere in particular. Besides, a man with half an eye could tell by looking at that craft that she’s strong-handed. Depend on’t, Harry, there’s too many hammocks in her fo’c’stle for an honest trader. And, worst luck, she’s bound the same road as ourselves—at least, she’s going round the Horn; but a’ter she gets round it’s not so easy to say what course she may steer. We must hope she’s on the look-out for some stray Spaniard or other coming down the coast; for if we falls in with her ag’in, she’ll have some’at to say to us, mark my words.”
“You surely do not suppose the man will condescend to give such a pigmy as ourselves a thought, do you?”