"They certainly seem to be very indifferent. Have you any idea what that white ribbon means?"
"Have I? Certainly I have. Can't you see through the side of the ship, when there's a port in it? That ribbon is to distinguish the lambs from the black sheep, like you and me."
"Pooh! What's the use of that?"
"So that the officers can tell them in the dark as well as at noonday. But Little has given those fellows a name already. He calls them the White Feathers. We must laugh at them, make game of them, whip them with their own weapons. Hark!" said Howe, suddenly turning his head towards the kitchen, near the door of which they stood.
"What's the matter?"
"They are trying the pump," replied Howe, as both of them plainly heard the sucking, "squilching" noise made by the copper pump, from which the cook was trying to draw water from the tanks below.
"What of it?" demanded Raymond, who did not see anything remarkable in the circumstance.
"Never mind; you will find out soon enough," answered the chief runaway, as he left his companion thoroughly mystified, and not a little alarmed; for it was evident that some terrible mischief had been perpetrated.
The pump sucked and groaned under the efforts of the cook, who had been directed to make a pot of coffee for the use of the watch, and was now trying to obtain water for that purpose. None would come, and it was plain to him that the pump was out of order. Taking a bucket and a lantern, he passed into the steerage, and opened the scuttle. The runaways observed him with intense interest; for the time had come when they were to "make themselves felt." The cook went down into the hold, and was absent about a quarter of an hour. He returned with an empty bucket in his hand, and hastened on deck with the alarming intelligence that the water tanks were all empty, which he communicated to the head steward.
As the tanks had been filled just before the ship left the dock at Havre, the head steward was not willing to believe the startling report. He went into the hold himself with the cook. By this time the runaways thought it prudent to keep out of sight, and all of them retired to their rooms, and most of them to their berths. The head steward tried the tanks, and was satisfied with the truth of the report. When the ship rolled, the faucets on the lee side poured out a few drops of water. Sounded with a mallet, the tanks gave forth only a hollow, empty sound. The steward was astonished and mortified at the discovery, for he was responsible for keeping the ship supplied with water, as well as with all other necessaries in the culinary department. He inquired very particularly in regard to the state of the faucets when the cook had first come below to draw water, and was assured that they were firmly closed. He lifted up some of the ballast, and saw that it was wet. He went to the well, where all the leakage of the ship is collected to be thrown up by the pumps.