“Ah, you’ll find it will be a capital thing at nights. I know she could never stand the exposure, and canvas don’t keep out the rain well; so I thought of rigging up a large box, into which she can creep. I’ll make air-holes in the roof that will let in air, but not water; and I’ll caulk the seams with oakum, so as to keep it quite dry inside.”
“Thank you, my boy, it’s very kind of you to take so much thought for my poor child. Yet she deserves it, Glynn, and we can’t be too careful of her.”
The captain patted the youth on the shoulder, and, leaving him to continue his work, went to see Gurney, who had been ailing a little during the last few days. Brandy, in small quantities, had been prescribed by the doctor, and, fortunately, two bottles of that spirit had been swept from the wreck. Being their whole stock, Captain Dunning had stowed it carefully away in what he deemed a secret and secure place; but it turned out that some member of the crew was not so strict in his principles of temperance as could be desired; for, on going to the spot to procure the required medicine, it was found that one of the bottles was gone.
This discovery caused the captain much anxiety and sorrow, for, besides inflicting on them the loss of a most valuable medicine, it proved that there was a thief in their little society.
What was to be done? To pass it over in silence would have shown weakness, which, especially in the circumstances in which they were at that time placed, might have led at last to open mutiny. To discover the thief was impossible. The captain’s mind was soon made up. He summoned every one of the party before him, and, after stating the discovery he had made, he said—
“Now, lads, I’m not going to charge any of you with having done this thing, but I cannot let it pass without warning you that if I discover any of you being guilty of such practices in future, I’ll have the man tied up and give him three dozen with a rope’s-end. You know I have never resorted, as many captains are in the habit of doing, to corporal punishment. I don’t like it. I’ve sailed in command of ships for many years, and have never found it needful; but now, more than ever, strict discipline must be maintained; and I tell you, once for all, that I mean to maintain it at any cost.”
This speech was received in silence. All perceived the justice of it, yet some felt that, until the thief should be discovered, they themselves would lie under suspicion. A few there were, indeed, whose well-known and long-established characters raised them above suspicion, but there were others who knew that their character had not yet been established on so firm a basis, and they felt that until the matter should be cleared up, their honesty would be, mentally at least, called in question by their companions.
With the exception of the disposition to mutiny related in a previous chapter, this was the first cloud that had risen to interrupt the harmony of the shipwrecked sailors, and as they returned to their work, sundry suggestions and remarks were made in reference to the possibility of discovering the delinquent.
“I didn’t think it wos poss’ble,” said Rokens. “I thought as how there wasn’t a man in the ship as could ha’ done sich a low, mean thing as that.”
“No more did I,” said Dick Barnes.