"You take it easy," was Stirling's parting injunction. "I promise I'll turn you out directly we sight the Mohoro Lagoon."
Reassured, Denbigh and his comrades in peril capitulated. Eighteen hours' solid sleep worked wonders, and although the Irishman was still suffering from painful inflammation of the optic nerve, the three officers had bathed, shaved, and changed into borrowed plumage before breakfast-time on the following morning.
After scraps of mutual experiences had been exchanged Stirling invited his chums to the bridge.
"The rummiest packet I ever set foot on," he admitted, "but she's a clinker. We've as fine a pair of 14-inch guns as a fellow could wish for. British made, too; they were manufactured in Canada. The old Crustacean does not belie her name. She has a decided tendency to crawl crabwise, and she's as unhandy as a balsa-raft in a gale of wind."
"Not very good points," remarked O'Hara.
"But she has her qualifications, Pat. She's said to be torpedo-proof——"
"Do you want a practical test, old man?" asked Denbigh.
"Um—no; that is, not particularly if it can be avoided. Why?"
"Because there are a pair of 60-centimetre tubes waiting to have a slap at you when you ascend the Mohoro River."
"Steady, old man," protested Stirling with a hearty laugh. "The river's not broad enough for the Pelikan to be lying athwart the stream. She must be quite twenty miles up the river."