Mrs. Cliff looked at Captain Burke, and he looked at her. "If it was a sailin'-vessel," he exclaimed, "I'd say she couldn't be worked by parsons, but a steamer's different! By George! madam, let's take them, and get away while we can!" CHAPTER XXIV CHANGES ON THE "SUMMER SHELTER" When Captain Burke communicated to Mr. Portman and Mr. Burdette the news that nine of their passengers had offered to ship as a crew, the sailing-master and the first mate shook their heads. They did not believe that the vessel could be worked by parsons. "But there isn't anybody else!" exclaimed Burke. "We've got to get away, and they're all able-bodied, and they have more sense than most landsmen we can ship. And besides, here are five experienced seamen on board, and I say, let's try the parsons." "All right," said Mr. Burdette. "If you're willing to risk it, I am." Mr. Portman also said he was willing, and the engineer and his assistant, who were getting very nervous, agreed to the plan as soon as they heard of it. Captain Burke shook himself, pulled his cap to the front of his head, arranged his coat properly and buttoned it up, and began to give orders. "Now, then," said he, "all passengers going ashore, please step lively!" And while this lively stepping was going on, and during the leave-taking and rapid writing of notes to be sent to the homes of the clerical crew, he ordered Mr. Burdette to secure a pilot, attend to the clearance business, and make everything ready to cast off and get out of the harbor as soon as possible. When the five reverend gentlemen who had decided not to accompany the _Summer Shelter_ in her further voyaging had departed for the hotel, portmanteaus in hand, and amply furnished by Mrs. Cliff with funds for their return to their homes, the volunteer crew, most of them without coats or waistcoats, and all in a high picnic spirit, set to work with enthusiasm, doing more things than they knew how to do, and embarrassing Mr. Burdette a good deal by their over-willingness to make themselves useful. But this untrained alacrity was soon toned down, and early in the afternoon, the hawsers of the _Summer Shelter_ were cast off, and she steamed out of the eastern passage of the harbor. There were remarks made in the town after the departure of the yacht; but when the passengers who had been left behind, all clergymen of high repute, had related the facts of the case, and had made it understood that the yacht, whose filibustering purpose had been suspected by its former crew, was now manned by nine members of the Synod recently convened in Brooklyn, and under the personal direction of Mrs. Cliff, an elderly and charitable resident of Plainton, Maine, all distrust was dropped, and was succeeded in some instances by the hope that the yacht might not be wrecked before it reached Jamaica.