When I went on deck next morning there was something great ado. We were out of sight of land, sailing large, as the old phrase went, on a brisk quarter breeze with top-sails atrip, and the sky a vast fine open blue. The crew were gathered at the poop, the pump was clanking in the midst of them, and I saw they were taking spells at the cruellest labour a seaman knows. At first I was noway troubled at the spectacle; a leak was to be expected in old rotten-beams, and I went forward with the heart of me not a pulse the faster. Risk was leaning over the poop-rail, humped up and his beard on his hands; Murchison, a little apart, swept the horizon with a prospect-glass, and the pump sent a great spate of bilge-water upon the deck. But for a man at the tiller who kept the ship from yawing in the swell that swung below her counter the _Seven Sisters_ sailed at her sweet will; all the interest of her company was in this stream of stinking water that she retched into the scuppers. And yet I could not but be struck by the half-hearted manner in which the seamen wrought; they were visibly shirking; I saw it in the slack muscles, in the heedless eyes. Risk rose and looked sourly at me as I went up. “Are ye for a job?” said he. “It's more in your line perhaps than clerkin'.” “What, at the pumps? Is the old randy geyzing already?” “Like a washing-boyne,” said he. “Bear a hand like a good lad! we maun keep her afloat at least till some other vessel heaves in sight.” In the tone and look of the man there was something extraordinary. His words were meant to suggest imminent peril, and yet his voice was shallow as that of a burgh bellman crying an auction sale, and his eyes had more interest in the horizon that his mate still searched with the prospect-glass than in the spate of bilge that gulped upon the deck. Bilge did I say? Heavens! it was bilge no more, but the pure sea-green that answered to the clanking pump. It was no time for idle wonder at the complacence of the skipper; I flew to the break and threw my strength into the seaman's task. “Clank-click, clank-click”--the instrument worked reluctantly as if the sucker moved in slime, and in a little the sweat poured from me. “How is she now, Campbell?” asked Risk, as the carpenter came on deck. “Three feet in the hold,” said Campbell airily, like one that had an easy conscience. “Good lord, a foot already!” cried Risk, and then in a tone of sarcasm, “Hearty, lads, hearty there! A little more Renfrewshire beef into it, Mr. Greig, if you please.” At that I ceased my exertion, stood back straight and looked at the faces about me. There was only one man in the company who did not seem to be amused at me, and that was Horn, who stood with folded arms, moodily eying the open sea. “You seem mighty joco about it,” I said to Risk, and I wonder to this day at my blindness that never read the whole tale in these hurried events.