“You are hurt, Billy?”

“Not’s I know by,” answered Billy, and stared about him.  “What’s become o’ the brown vermin?”

“They seem to have disappeared,” said my father, likewise looking about him.

“But what on earth has happened?” I persisted, catching him by the shoulder and shouting in his ear above the roar of a second sudden squall.

“I—­blew up—­the ship.  Captain wouldn’t listen—­academical fellows, these skippers—­like every one else brought up in a profession.  So I mutinied and blew—­her—­up.  He’s wounded, by the way.”

“Tell you what,” yelled Billy, staggering up, “we’ll be at the bottom in two shakes if somebody don’t handle her in these puffs.  Why, where’s the wheel?”

“Gone,” answered my father.  “Blown away, it appears.”

“And she don’t right herself!”

“Ballast has shifted.  The gunpowder blew it every way.  Well, well—­poor old John Worthyvale won’t mourn it.  I left him below past praying for.”

“Look here, Master Prosper,” shouted Billy.  “If the ship won’t steer we must get that mains’l in, or we’re lost men.  Run you and cast off the peak halliards while I lower!  The Lord be praised, here’s Mike, too,” he cried, as Mike Halliday appeared at the hatchway, nursing a badly burnt arm.  “Glad to see ye, Mike, and wish I could say the same to poor Roger.  The devils knifed poor Roger, I reckon.”

“No, they did not,” said my father, in a lull of the wind.  “They knocked him on the back of the head and slid his body down the after-companion.  The noise of him bumping down the ladder was what first fetched me awake.  He’s a trifle dazed yet, but recovering.”

“’Tis a short life he’ll recover to, unless we stir ourselves.”  Billy clutched my father’s arm.  “Look ’ee, master!  See what they heathens be doin’!”

“We have scared ’em,” said my father.  “They are putting about.”

“Something has scared ’em, sure ’nough.  But if ’tis from us they be in any such hurry to get away, why did they take in a reef before putting the helm over?  No, no, master:  they know the weather hereabouts, and we don’t.  We’ve been reckonin’ this for a thunderstorm—­a short blow and soon over.  They know better, seemin’ to me.  Else why don’t they tack alongside and finish us?”

“I believe you are right,” said my father, after a long look to windward.

“And I’m sure of it,” insisted Billy.  “What’s more, if we can’t right the ballast a bit and get steerage way on her afore the sea works up, she’ll go down under us inside the next two hours.  There’s the pumps, too:  for if she don’t take in water like a basket I was never born in Wendron parish an’ taught blastin’.  Why, master, you must ha’ blown the very oakum out of her seams!”

My father frowned thoughtfully.  “That’s true,” said he; “I have been congratulating myself too soon.  Billy, in the absence of Captain Pomery I appoint you skipper.  You have an ugly job to face, but do your best.”