"We must save the vessel, for the mate says she is in great danger. There is a storm coming, and Mr. Lincoln don't know where we are. Father hasn't taken an observation for four days."
"Well, are you going to take one?" asked Noddy, who was rather bewildered by Mollie's statement of the perils of the vessel.
"No; but I intend that father shall to-morrow."
"What are you going to do?"
She opened the pantry door, and took from the shelf a bottle of gin.
"Take this, Noddy, and throw it overboard," said she, handing him the bottle.
"I'll do that;" and he went to the bull's eye, in Molli's state-room, and dropped it into the sea.
"That's only a part of the work," said she, as she opened one of the lockers in the cabin, which was stowed full of liquors.
She passed them out, two at a time, and Noddy dropped them all into the ocean. Captain McClintock was lying in his state-room, in a helpless state of intoxication, so that there was no fear of interruption from him. Every bottle of wine, ale, and liquor which the cabin contained was thrown overboard. Noddy thought that the sharks, which swallow everything that falls overboard, would all get "tight;" but he hoped they would break the bottles before they swallowed them. The work was done, and everything which could intoxicate was gone; at least everything which Mollie and the cabin-boy could find. They did not tell Mr. Lincoln what they had done, for they did not wish to make him a party to the transaction.
They were satisfied with their work. The vessel would be saved if the storm held off twelve hours longer. The captain rose early the next morning, and Noddy, from his berth, saw him go to the pantry for his morning dram. There was no bottle there. He went to the locker; there was none there. He searched, without success, in all the lockers and berths of the cabin. While he was engaged in the search, Mollie, who had heard him, came out of her room.