"Not even if we had them all secured in the bunks, and the forescuttle shipped and battened over them?" interrupted Morley.
"No, sir, not even then," replied Noah very emphatically.
"How so?"
"'Cos, if you didn't smother 'em, they'd set the ship on fire, that all on us might go to old Davy together. The greatest warmints on land and sea are them Espanoles, as comes from South 'Meriker—I knows 'em, I does."
"Egad, Noah is right," said Tom Bartelot; "and to get the weather-gage of these fellows we must try some other plan than fisticuffs."
During this time the crew were all heard on deck rumbling about, growling and uttering threats; and by the number of seas shipped over the bows, by the lurching and pitching of the vessel, it was evident to those below that the wind had freshened, and that an unsteady hand was on the wheel, as she was yawing, and steering wild.
By noon Ethel was almost composed, and when she reclined on her bed, with one hand clasped by her father, another in Morley's, Rose bending over her, and worthy young Dr. Heriot hovering about, she felt soothed; through all her overtaxed frame there seemed to flow a tranquillising and magnetic influence; she almost forgot that the same ship contained, but a few yards off, the source of her recent terror; her over-wrought mind grew calm, and the fever passed out of her.
"Dear papa—dear papa—kiss me. Sit closer, Morley dear," she said, in a sweet, low voice; "where is your hand, Morley?"
"Here—clasped on yours, Ethel."
"Oh, papa, if poor mamma only knew of all this!" she was beginning, when tears choked her utterance.