By mid-day it could not be discerned, even with the aid of the most powerful glass on board.
CHAPTER X.
PEDRO'S WOUND.
All the few who could work on board the Hermione—seven in number—to wit, Captain Phillips, and his second mate, Mr. Foster, Morley Ashton, Tom Bartelot, and his mate, Morrison, Doctor Heriot, and Noah Gawthrop, now became foremast-men, and had to work hard in putting the long-neglected ship in some order. Thus, they became riggers, painters, ship-carpenters, and everything else in turn.
Morley and the doctor were invaluable in the use of the hammer and saw, and in plaiting sinnet of rope or spunyarn, and in assisting to get better jury spars rigged, spare sails bent, and new chafing clapped on back and forestays, or wherever necessary.
The pumps were first attended to, and all the debris flung into the cabin by the mutineers was cleared out, the shot replaced round the coamings of the hatchway, the hatchway itself reclosed, and battened down; the buckets were hung again at the break of the quarter-deck, ropes were coiled over the belaying-pins, spare spars were lashed alongside, and everything was tidied fore and aft, and made as shipshape as the small number of workers and their circumstances would permit; even the scuttle-butt was lashed again to its ring-bolts on deck, and the captain's spyglass and gutta-percha trumpet placed on their brass cleats in the companion-way.
All the rubbish accumulated during the disorderly reign of the mutineers was thrown overboard; the head-pump was rigged, and the deck, after being deluged with water, was cleanly swabbed up. All this unwonted work caused an unusual quantity of pale ale to be consumed, together with more than one case of Mr. Basset's still Cliquot and sparging Moselle, which had escaped the investigations of Pedro and his compatriots.
Noah was installed as cook, and Heriot had to take his "trick" at the wheel with the rest—in fact, no one could be excused anything. All worked with hearty good-will, and not without anxiety, knowing that if a gale blew, or a sudden squall came on, they would have to reduce the sails in succession, and not at once, as the emergency of the occasion might require.
By mid-day Rose Basset, with a shawl pinned over her braided hair, and old Nance Folgate, in a straw bonnet of wonderful fashion and size, sat smiling and wondering at all this, under the awning on the quarter-deck.
Even Ethel, pale, anxious, and tremulous, ventured to leave the bedside of her father, who was progressing favourably, and once more inhaled, for a few minutes, the sea-breeze. She found it delightful after the close atmosphere of the cabin for so many days; but she was rather startled to see Morley out on the arm of the mainyard, astride above the deep, with his shirt-sleeves rolled up, and a hank of spun-yarn between his teeth, as he was busy, in a most workmanlike way, about the weather-earing of the mainsail. After a time, however, she ceased to feel either wonder or alarm at Morley's feats of seamanship.