“So do mine,” Matteo agreed.  “In addition, I am hungry, for the bread they gave us this morning was not fit for dogs, although I had to eat it, as it was that or nothing.”

“And now, Matteo, I shall try to get a few hours’ sleep.  I did not close my eyes last night, from the pain of my wounds, but I think I might manage to drop off now.”

The motion of the vessel aided the effect of the bodily weakness that Francis was feeling, and in spite of the pain of his wounds he soon went off into a sound sleep.  Once or twice he woke, but hearing no voices or movement, he supposed his companions were all asleep, and again went off, until a stream of light coming in from the opening of the hatchway thoroughly roused him.  Matteo, who was lying by his side, also woke and stretched himself, and there was a general movement among the ten young men who were their comrades in misfortune.

“Here is your breakfast,” a voice from above the hatchway said, and a basket containing bread and a bucket of water was lowered by ropes.

“Breakfast!” Matteo said.  “Why, it is not two hours since we breakfasted last.”

“I suspect it is twenty-two, Matteo.  We have had a very long sleep, and I feel all the better of it.  Now, let us divide the liberal breakfast our captors have given us; fortunately there is just enough light coming down from those scuttles to enable us to do so fairly.”

There was a general laugh, from his comrades, at the cheerful way in which Francis spoke.  Only one of them had been an officer on the Pluto.  The rest were, like Matteo, volunteers of good families.  There was a good deal of light-hearted jesting over their meal.  When it was over, Francis said: 

“Now let us hold a council of war.”

“You are better off than Pisani was, anyhow,” one of the young men said, “for you are not hampered with proveditors, and anything that your captaincy may suggest will, you may be sure, receive our assent.”

“I am your captain no longer,” Francis replied.  “We are all prisoners now, and equal, and each one has a free voice and a free vote.”

“Then I give my voice and vote at once, Francisco,” Matteo said, “to the proposal that you remain our captain, and that we obey you, as cheerfully and willingly as we should if you were on the poop of the Pluto, instead of being in the hold.  In the first place, at Carlo’s death you became our captain by right, so long as we remain together; and in the second place you have more experience than all of us put together, and a very much better head than most of us, myself included.

“Therefore, comrades, I vote that Messer Francisco Hammond be still regarded as our captain, and obeyed as such.”

There was a general chorus of assent, for the energy which Francis had displayed throughout the trying winter, and the manner in which he had led the crew during the desperate fighting, had won for him the regard and the respect of them all.