Day dawned windless and hot.  Their slumbers had been too profound to be refreshing, and they woke listless, and sat up, and stared about them with dull eyes.  Only Wicks, smelling a hard day’s work ahead, was more alert.  He went first to the well, sounded it once and then a second time, and stood awhile with a grim look, so that all could see he was dissatisfied.  Then he shook himself, stripped to the buff, clambered on the rail, drew himself up and raised his arms to plunge.  The dive was never taken.  He stood instead transfixed, his eyes on the horizon.

“Hand up that glass,” he said.

In a trice they were all swarming aloft, the nude captain leading with the glass.

On the northern horizon was a finger of grey smoke, straight in the windless air like a point of admiration.

“What do you make it?” they asked of Wicks.

“She’s truck down,” he replied; “no telling yet.  By the way the smoke builds, she must be heading right here.”

“What can she be?”

“She might be a China mail,” returned Wicks, “and she might be a blooming man-of-war, come to look for castaways.  Here!  This ain’t the time to stand staring.  On deck, boys!”

He was the first on deck, as he had been the first aloft, handed down the ensign, bent it again to the signal halliards, and ran it up union down.

“Now hear me,” he said, jumping into his trousers, “and everything I say you grip on to.  If that’s a man-of-war, she’ll be in a tearing hurry; all these ships are what don’t do nothing and have their expenses paid.  That’s our chance; for we’ll go with them, and they won’t take the time to look twice or to ask a question.  I’m Captain Trent; Carthew, you’re Goddedaal; Tommy, you’re Hardy; Mac’s Brown; Amalu—­Hold hard! we can’t make a Chinaman of him!  Ah Wing must have deserted; Amalu stowed away; and I turned him to as cook, and was never at the bother to sign him.  Catch the idea?  Say your names.”

And that pale company recited their lesson earnestly.

“What were the names of the other two?” he asked.  “Him Carthew shot in the companion, and the one I caught in the jaw on the main top-gallant?”

“Holdorsen and Wallen,” said some one.

“Well, they’re drowned,” continued Wicks; “drowned alongside trying to lower a boat.  We had a bit of a squall last night:  that’s how we got ashore.”  He ran and squinted at the compass.  “Squall out of nor’-nor’-west-half-west; blew hard; every one in a mess, falls jammed, and Holdorsen and Wallen spilt overboard.  See?  Clear your blooming heads!” He was in his jacket now, and spoke with a feverish impatience and contention that rang like anger.

“But is it safe?” asked Tommy.

“Safe?” bellowed the captain.  “We’re standing on the drop, you moon-calf!  If that ship’s bound for China (which she don’t look to be), we’re lost as soon as we arrive; if she’s bound the other way, she comes from China, don’t she?  Well, if there’s a man on board of her that ever clapped eyes on Trent or any blooming hand out of this brig, we’ll all be in irons in two hours.  Safe! no, it ain’t safe; it’s a beggarly last chance to shave the gallows, and that’s what it is.”