"Fifteen or sixteen, or some other number," shouted the skipper. "Tell me the exact number, you old idiot, or I'll disrate you! Confound that dog! Turn him out." "Sixteen's the exact number we can't find," returned Jennings, "but some of 'em may be aboard, and turn up sober by-and-by." "Small chance of that," muttered the captain. "Well, it's no use fretting; the question is, What's to be done? We were short-handed before--so you thought, didn't you, Jennings?" "Well, cap'en, we hadn't none too many, that's sartain; and we should have been all the better for half a dozen more." "That comes to the same thing, doesn't it?" said the skipper, who, vexed and embarrassed as he was, could not help being a little diverted at the old man's invincible reluctance to speaking out. "Well, I suppose it does, sir," he answered, "only you see--" "I don't see anything, except that we are in a very awkward scrape," interposed the other. "It will be madness to attempt to make the passage with such a handful as we have at present. If there came a gale, or we fall in with a French or Spanish cruiser--" He paused, unwilling to put his thoughts into words. "'Twouldn't be pleasant, for sartain," observed Jennings. "But, then, if we put back to England--for I know no hands are to be had at Madeira, we should be quite as likely to encounter a storm, or a Frenchman." "A good deal more like," assented the quartermaster. "And there would be the loss and delay, and the blame would be safe to be laid on me," continued the captain, following out his own thoughts rather than replying to his companion's observations. "No, we must go on. But then, where are we to pick up any fresh hands?" "We shall be off the Canaries this evening, cap'en," said Jennings. "We've been running along at a spanking rate with this wind all night. The peak's in sight even now." "The Canaries are no good, Jennings. The Dons are at war with us, you know. And though there are no ships of war in the harbour at Santa Cruz, they'd fire upon us from the batteries if we attempted to hold communication with the shore." "They ain't always so particular, are they, sir?" asked the sailor. "Perhaps not, Jennings. But the Dons here have never forgiven the attack made on them seven or eight years ago, by Nelson." "Well, sir, they might have forgiven that, seeing as they got the best of it I was in that, sir--b'longed to the _Foxy_ and was one of Nelson's boat's crew, and we got nothing out of the Dons but hard knocks and no ha'pence that time." "That's true. But you see Nelson has done them so much harm since, that the damage they did him then seems very little comfort to them. No, we mustn't attempt anything at the Canaries." "Very good, sir. Then go on to the Cape Verdes. If this wind holds, we shall soon be there, and the Cape Verdes don't belong to the Dons."