"Nassau is somewhere about; but it may be two or three hundred miles away, an' seein's how I can't take an observation, we wouldn't know whether it was north or south. Did you get burned very bad?"
"I thought so at first," Joe replied with a laugh; "but I guess it's only skin deep—more painful than serious."
"You got out of it luckily; how can the engine be patched up again?"
"If no more damage has been done than the blowing out of a tube I will soon have it in working order."
"We'll get something to eat, and then see what's to be done. Jim!" he added, raising his voice, "cook the best breakfast you know how, to make up for this mess you've brought us into."
Master Libby, who had been expecting a sound rating at the very least, because of his carelessness, was so thoroughly surprised at the friendly tone that he lost no time in obeying this order, and, as a partial atonement for his misdeeds, prepared a meal which in quantity and variety would have been sufficient for twenty hungry men.
The sorrow which all hands felt because of the disaster did not prevent them from doing full justice to the unskillfully prepared food, and the table had been relieved of a large portion of its burden before any attempt at conversation was made.
"While you're seein' how much damage has been done to the tug, me an' the boys will get an anchor out aft so's the brig can't work further inshore." Bob said to the engineer. "If you can get up steam, an' the tug's afloat, it oughtn't take very long to pull us off this sand-bank."
"So far as I know it's only a case of blowing out one of the tubes," Joe replied.
"Can it be fixed without much work?"