Of course Jimmy’s narrative was not so briefly told as I have given it. He was discursive and conversational, and given to embellishment. I kept him up until late that night, telling me all he knew of my mother, my father, my brothers, Tom and Josh; and I asked him about all my friends, ending up with Ann McKim. About Ann he was enthusiastic, speaking of her in the slang of the day. I forget what expression he used, but it corresponded to “perfect peach.” I could well believe it. Captain Coffin had found the Annie Battles pretty firmly aground, and the coral had punched a hole in her. {356} It was not a hopeless hole, although enough to justify any master in abandoning his vessel. Captain Coffin was not that kind. All the stuff was taken out of her, and spread on the beach. Then she was hastily patched on the inside, and pumped out. That was very nearly enough to float her, but not quite, for the rise of the tide at this point is small. Still there was that little peak of hard, sharp coral, which they were afraid would tear out more of her planking when eight boats were fast, with forty oars pulling at her. Our Kanakas had to go down and cut away the coral. Then she was beached, and hove down by our cutting-tackles from her mastheads to coconut-trunks. Her cutting-tackles had disappeared—probably thrown overboard. We all helped in this work, and I found that I had more bruises and unimportant wounds than I had believed possible; but the condition was common to all who had been in the fight, and I was interested in the work, which was familiar. We simply had to dispose of the corpses within a couple of days of beginning the work. That was an unpleasant job. We took them far down to leeward, and buried them hastily in a cavern we found in the coral, but that did not entirely get rid of the stench at the beach. It was probably from the bodies of the white men buried there—in very shallow graves. It took two weeks to get the Battles beached and repaired. Then we got her afloat again, the topmasts and yards sent up, sails bent and everything shipshape. With all her cargo—mostly trading stuff—piled on deck, we towed her out through the pass in the reef, and she was at sea again, where she belonged. She tied up alongside the Clearchus, and there began a wholesale transfer of cargo.