'Blimy,' said the crew, 'maybe we'll get some toke from this 'ere 'ooker wot's 'ad the syme misforchune as ourselves. I wonder what she is?'
So did Wood, and when he found out he would have been much more than human if he had not been pleased, though he had not read La Rochefoucauld.
'She won't lick us into Melbourne after all,' said the skipper.
He hove the poor old Scanderbeg to under the lee of the Cormorant, and she lay wallowing comfortably under a rag of a faked-up trysail and the head of a staysail showing on her forestay. Wood bellowed to windward with a speaking-trumpet, 'Where's Captain Balaam?'
Poor Briggs was tired and cross and insubordinate in his mind.
'In his bunk,' came down the wind.
'Is he hurt?'
'Drunk, sir,' said the distant voice.
'What did he say?' asked Wood of his mate.
'He said Captain Balaam was drunk, sir.'