“Ruined from end to end,” said the man of machinery. “If she rolls, the forward cylinder will come down and go through her bottom. Both columns are clean cut through. There’s nothing to hold anything up.” The council of war clanked off to see if Mr. Wardrop’s words were true. He warned them that it was as much as a man’s life was worth to enter the engine-room, and they contented themselves with a distant inspection through the thinning steam. The _Haliotis_ lifted to the long, easy swell, and the starboard supporting-column ground a trifle, as a man grits his teeth under the knife. The forward cylinder was depending on that unknown force men call the pertinacity of materials, which now and then balances that other heartbreaking power, the perversity of inanimate things. “You see!” said Mr. Wardrop, hurrying them away. “The engines aren’t worth their price as old iron.” “We tow,” was the answer. “Afterwards we shall confiscate.” The man-of-war was short-handed, and did not see the necessity for putting a prize-crew aboard the _Haliotis_. So she sent one sublieutenant, whom the skipper kept very drunk, for he did not wish to make the tow too easy, and, moreover, he had an inconspicuous little rope hanging from the stem of his ship. Then they began to tow at an average speed of four knots an hour. The _Haliotis_ was very hard to move, and the gunnery-lieutenant, who had fired the five-inch shell, had leisure to think upon consequences. Mr. Wardrop was the busy man. He borrowed all the crew to shore up the cylinders with spars and blocks from the bottom and sides of the ship. It was a day’s risky work; but anything was better than drowning at the end of a tow-rope; and if the forward cylinder had fallen, it would have made its way to the sea-bed, and taken the _Haliotis_ after. “Where are we going to, and how long will they tow us?” he asked of the skipper. “God knows! and this prize-lieutenant’s drunk. What do you think you can do?” “There’s just the bare chance,” Mr. Wardrop whispered, though no one was within hearing—“there’s just the bare chance o’ repairin’ her, if a man knew how. They’ve twisted the very guts out of her, bringing her up with that jerk; but I’m saying that, with time and patience, there’s just the chance o’ making steam yet. _We_ could do it.” The skipper’s eye brightened. “Do you mean,” he began, “that she is any good?” “Oh, no,” said Mr. Wardrop. “She’ll need three thousand pounds in repairs, at the lowest, if she’s to take the sea again, an’ that apart from any injury to her structure. She’s like a man fallen down five pair o’ stairs. We can’t tell for months what has happened; but we know she’ll never be good again without a new inside. Ye should see the condenser-tubes an’ the steam connections to the donkey, for two things only. I’m not afraid of them repairin’ her. I’m afraid of them stealin’ things.” “They’ve fired on us. They’ll have to explain that.”