Tom came out and said to me, ‘There are eighteen inches of water in the hold--nothing to take notice of, if she’s been long abandoned. Johnstone, you and I will take first spell at the pump.’ They drew their coats off, and in a very little while the pump was pulsing steadily to their muscular, sailorly strokes, and the water sobbed as it gushed to the scuppers and spouted into the sea. ‘I don’t care what Captain Butler says,’ exclaimed Mr. Bates, standing alongside of me, ‘there’s the finger of God in this!’ And he pulled off his cap and turned his face up to the stars. ‘There is something solemn and wonderful to me in this escape. Look how it all seems to have been planned. The drunken revelry of the convicts; the light air of wind blowing us into sight of this craft, then falling, as though to leave her within reach of us; then this brig herself, instead of an open boat--not the better for being abandoned, though but for that she’d not be here. I say it’s solemn and wonderful, and I’m grateful!’ And he again upturned his face. I made no answer. After a bit, the mate went to the pump, which they plied for some twenty minutes before dropping the rod again, when such a sensible decrease of water was observed as to satisfy Tom and Bates that the brig was tight. At the expiration of half an hour they came to the wheel to rest. Will fetched chairs out of the deck-house and we sat, the mate keeping the wheel steady, though he was seated; indeed, the brig, with square yards and a sea nigh as smooth as a plain of ice, wanted little or no steering. ‘There’s a big sheet of paper lying on the cabin table,’ said my cousin. ‘A chart, perhaps,’ said Tom. ‘How did this abandonment come about?’ exclaimed Mr. Bates. ‘Everything’s right aloft; I reckon the hull’s sound; she looks a staunch little craft. What drove the men out of her?’ ‘Are they out of her?’ said Tom. ‘What do you mean?’ I asked. ‘I once boarded an abandoned schooner when I was second mate,’ he answered; ‘she was deep with wheat. Everything was as right with her as it is with this brig. I looked into her forecastle and found five men dead on her deck, and in the cabin lay a sixth corpse. Bates, sailors hear and see so much that they soon forget to wonder and they never ask questions.’ ‘True, Butler. A deal’s happened since yesterday. And I don’t see the end of the traverse yet.’ ‘Marian,’ said Tom, ‘you are frightfully tired. Oh, Bates,’ he cried passionately, ‘think of what this lady has undergone for me and is still undergoing! So good, so loyal, so--so----’ His voice broke, he ceased, and I put my arm round his neck. ‘Dearest,’ he said, after a minute or two, ‘we’ll find a spare sail and make you a bed in that house there.’ ‘I couldn’t sleep. Let me be with you till we are sure that all’s well.’ ‘All is well.’ ‘I’ll wait for daybreak,’ said I. ‘I want to know the convict ship’s out of sight.’