I had not the heart to tell her what a ruffian they had turned loose upon her father.  It would do little good, for Sackett had passed his word to make Andrews second in command, and I knew from what I had seen of this religious skipper, that he would keep it at any cost.  As for Chips, myself, and the rest of the men, seven of the Sovereign’s crew and ourselves, we were simply passengers, as Mr. Bell had informed us.  We had no right whatever to take any part in affairs aboard, for the salvage would fall to those who elected to stay.

Captain Sackett moved away from me as I stood talking to his daughter and showed he did not wish to discuss Andrews.  He went to the edge of the poop and stared down on the main deck where the water surged to and fro with the swell.  He had a badly wrecked ship under him, and there was little time to lose getting her in better condition, for a sudden blow might start to break her up, or roll the seas over her so badly that no one could live aboard.

I stood for some minutes talking to the young girl, and when her father spoke to me she held out her hand, smiling.  “We’ll be shipmates now and you’ll have a chance to show what a Yankee sailor can do.  I believe in heroes—­when they’re civil,” she added.

“Unfortunately for the worshipper of heroes, there is a great deal left to the goddess Chance, in the picking of them,” I answered.  “Admiration for human beings should not be hysterical.”

“From the little I’ve seen of men during the six voyages I’ve made around the world in this ship with papa, your advice is somewhat superfluous,” she said, with the slightest raising of the eyebrows.  Then she went aft to the taffrail and stood gazing into the fog astern.

“Mr. Rolling,” said Sackett, “there’s no use of thinking about leaving the ship while the fog lasts, now.  You might have made the Pirate by close reckoning before, but she must have changed her bearings fully a half a dozen points since you started.  She’s under canvas, and this breeze will send her along at least six knots and drift her two with her yards aback.  You might as well take hold here and get some of your men to lend a hand.  The foremast is still alongside, and we might get a jury rig on her without danger of heeling her on her bilge.  She’s well loaded, the oil and light stuff on top, so she won’t be apt to turn turtle.”

It was as he said.  We were all in the same ship, so as to speak, wrecked and water-logged to the southward of the Cape.  The best thing to do was to take it in the right spirit and fall to work without delay, getting her in as shipshape condition as possible.  The fog might last a week, and the Pirate might get clear across the equator before stopping a second time in her course.  I knew that even Trunnell would not wait more than a few hours; for if we did not turn up then, it was duff to dog’s-belly, as the saying went, that we wouldn’t heave in sight at all.  The ocean is a large place for a small boat to get lost in, and without compass or sextant there would be little chance for her to overhaul a ship standing along a certain course.