But we fished out a piece of canvas, which we
rigged up ag'in' the stump of the mainmast so that we could have
somethin' that we could sit down an' grumble under. What struck
us all the hardest was that the bark was loaded with a whole
cargo of jolly things to eat, which was just as good as ever they
was, fur the water couldn't git through the tin cans in which
they was all put up, an' here we was with nothin' to live on but
them salted biscuit. There wasn't no way of gittin' at any of
the ship's stores, or any of the fancy prog, fur everythin' was
stowed away tight under six or seven feet of water, an' pretty
nigh all the room that was left between decks was filled up with
extry spars, lumber, boxes, an' other floatin' stuff. All was
shiftin', an' bumpin', an' bangin' every time the vessel rolled.
"As I said afore, Tom was second mate, an' I was bo's'n.
Says I to Tom, `The thing we've got to do is to put up some kind
of a spar with a rag on it fur a distress flag, so that we'll
lose no time bein' took off.' `There's no use a-slavin' at
anythin' like that,' says Tom, `fur we've been blowed off the
track of traders, an' the more we work the hungrier we'll git,
an' the sooner will them biscuit be gone.'
"Now when I heared Tom say this I sot still an' began to
consider. Bein' second mate, Tom was, by rights, in command of
this craft. But it was easy enough to see that if he commanded
there'd never be nothin' fur Andy an' me to do. All the grit he
had in him he'd used up in holdin' on durin' that typhoon.
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