"Why, isn't it Chips?" I exclaimed in surprise, not knowing that this was the nickname applied to every carpenter afloat.
"My name is Philemon Cutterwaite," he answered, quietly.
As of course I had no intention to hurt his feelings, I repressed a smile, merely saying, "Very good, Mr. Cutterwaite; I shall endeavor to remember it."
"Thank you, sir," was the reply. "Shall I get the instruments and take the time?"
As he spoke he stepped to the head of the companion-ladder and knocked. I could think of no excuse for the moment for detaining him, and taking my silence for consent, he obeyed the answer from below to enter, and disappeared. But in an instant he came on deck.
"Captain Hurdiss," he said, "the chronometer has stopped. We must have forgotten to wind it, sir—bad fortune!"
"Then there is no sight for to-day," I said, much relieved.
"I suppose not," was the grumbling answer. And then the good fellow went below.
I messed alone, either on deck or in my box of a cabin; and I had just finished my evening meal when one of the crew who had been aloft came down to the forecastle and reported that there was a sail in sight to the westward. When I came on deck I could just make out a faint spot against the sunset sky, but what course the vessel was holding I could not make out even with the aid of a glass. It was dead calm, and the Bat rolled lazily about, fetching up with a jerk of her heavy boom that would send an echolike sound rolling up the great mainsail.
In my absence Mr. Cutterwaite, as I shall call him hereafter, had given some orders, and I saw that some of the crew were making ready to get rolling tackle on her, as a preventive of the danger of carrying anything away by the slapping and romping of the vessel. The sea that was running must have been the aftermath, so to speak, of a heavy blow, for it rolled from the southward, smooth and round, with not a ripple on the crest or a dimple to be seen on the sides of the waves.