The fire was put out and the steward dragged out, but what with fire and smoke and water combined, the provisions he had charge of were no more likely to do their duty than he was. They put him overboard gloomily, and that night the hurricane fell on them and did its worst.
'Well,' said poor Captain Wood, 'I'm afraid the Cormorant will beat us this time!'
But he did not take to drink and camp in a wet bunk as Balaam did. He worked day and night with his two mates, and made some sort of a show with a jury rig inside of twenty-four hours. But he was very much troubled about the 'grub.' Ships are never over-provisioned, and even the stock of canned goods had been fired and fuzed.
'I'd give fifty pounds for a ton of biscuits,' said Wood.
It wasn't till they were under way again and doing nearly four knots an hour with the sou'wester behind them, that an idea struck him.
'By Jove,' said the skipper. He slapped his thigh and suddenly became cheerful. Mr. Boden, the chief mate, was very curious but did not express his curiosity.
'The old man has something in his mind,' he told the second greaser, Tom Hankin.
'I wish I had something in my stomach,' said Hankin.
And the skipper went below. When he came up he altered the course to E.N.E., and Boden having taken a squint at the chart, became much more cheerful. So did Hankin, though he tightened his belt. So did the crowd for'ard, though they tightened theirs.
And the next day they ran across the Cormorant in that almighty waste of grey storm.