’Aye, aye, sir,’ I shouted back, but never thought what he really meant—thought he meant we weren’t working hard enough. ’We can’t do no more ’ardly,’ Pat O’Leary, the captain of the foretop, panted. ’The foretop men be pulling their pound—anyway, sir,’ and he seized basket after basket and hove them on the platform rigged half-way up the ship’s side, doing the work of three men. ’Keep it up, foretop,’ I shouted, shovelling for all I was worth, Bob and the Angel keeping me busy with empty baskets. Then there was a warning shout from up above, a lot of chaps cried, ’Look out, sir!’ and, before I knew what had happened, I was in the water, all my chaps were in the water, the lighter had turned turtle, and twenty or more tons of good coal was sinking to the bottom of the harbour. The first thing I thought was, ’We can’t beat them now,’ knew it was my fault, and felt a fool. The Commander was bellowing for me to come aboard, and Bob and the Angel, with their faces rather cleaner and bursting with laughter, were bobbing alongside me. Then O’Leary spluttered out that the ’Scorp’ lighterman was missing, and we both up with our feet and dived down to find him. The water was so thick with coal dust that we couldn’t see a foot away from us, but O’Leary touched him as he was coming up for breath and brought him to the surface, pretty well full of water and frightened out of his wits, though otherwise none the worse. I did feel a fool if you like. What had happened was that we had dug away all the coal on one side, and I had never noticed—I was so excited—that the lighter was gradually heeling over, till over she went—upside down. The band had stopped, the whole of the coaling had stopped, the men looking over the side to see if any of us had been drowned, till the Commander, hoarse with shouting, shrieked for them to carry on again, whilst we clambered up the ship’s side like drowned rats, O’Leary helping the lighterman. Well, there wasn’t the faintest chance of our beating the _Hercules_ now. Every one knew it, everyone slacked off, and there was no more cheering and shouting of choruses. It was my stupidity that had spoilt everything.