Bub saw it clearly when put in that light, and shook his head despondently.

“You’d rather be dead than go to Siberia,” one of the boat-pullers said.  “They put you into the salt-mines and work you till you die.  Never see daylight again.  Why, I’ve heard tell of one fellow that was chained to his mate, and that mate died.  And they were both chained together!  And if they send you to the quicksilver mines you get salivated.  I’d rather be hung than salivated.”

“Wot’s salivated?” Jack asked, suddenly sitting up in his bunk at the hint of fresh misfortunes.

“Why, the quicksilver gets into your blood; I think that’s the way.  And your gums all swell like you had the scurvy, only worse, and your teeth get loose in your jaws.  And big ulcers form, and then you die horrible.  The strongest man can’t last long a-mining quicksilver.”

“A pad piziness,” the boat-steerer reiterated, dolorously, in the silence which followed.  “A pad piziness.  I vish I was in Yokohama.  Eh?  Vot vas dot?”

The vessel had suddenly heeled over.  The decks were aslant.  A tin pannikin rolled down the inclined plane, rattling and banging.  From above came the slapping of canvas and the quivering rat-tat-tat of the after leech of the loosely stretched foresail.  Then the mate’s voice sang down the hatch, “All hands on deck and make sail!”

Never had such summons been answered with more enthusiasm.  The calm had broken.  The wind had come which was to carry them south into safety.  With a wild cheer all sprang on deck.  Working with mad haste, they flung out topsails, flying jibs and stay-sails.  As they worked, the fog-bank lifted and the black vault of heaven, bespangled with the old familiar stars, rushed into view.  When all was ship-shape, the Mary Thomas was lying gallantly over on her side to a beam wind and plunging ahead due south.

“Steamer’s lights ahead on the port bow, sir!” cried the lookout from his station on the forecastle-head.  There was excitement in the man’s voice.

The captain sent Bub below for his night-glasses.  Everybody crowded to the lee-rail to gaze at the suspicious stranger, which already began to loom up vague and indistinct.  In those unfrequented waters the chance was one in a thousand that it could be anything else than a Russian patrol.  The captain was still anxiously gazing through the glasses, when a flash of flame left the stranger’s side, followed by the loud report of a cannon.  The worst fears were confirmed.  It was a patrol, evidently firing across the bows of the Mary Thomas in order to make her heave to.

“Hard down with your helm!” the captain commanded the steers-man, all the life gone out of his voice.  Then to the crew, “Back over the jib and foresail!  Run down the flying jib!  Clew up the foretopsail!  And aft here and swing on to the main-sheet!”

The Mary Thomas ran into the eye of the wind, lost headway, and fell to courtesying gravely to the long seas rolling up from the west.