The crew regarded the mishap with stolid satisfaction. The delay which it would occasion in the prosecution of the voyage was nothing to them; the ship was stripped of everything above her lower mastheads, leaving so much the less canvas for her crew to handle, and that was all they cared about at the moment. A little later on in the day they saw that if the gale lasted--of which there was every prospect--the loss of her spars would result in her separation from the remainder of the fleet, and as they remarked upon this to each other, the men smiled grimly, and exchanged certain short pithy remarks which, had they been heard by the occupants of the saloon, would have produced a feeling of grave uneasiness. The crew were, of course, at once set to work to clear away the wreck, and this they forthwith proceeded to do, for their own sakes, however, rather than out of respect to the captain's orders, the heavy spars dashing about the deck with the roll of the ship in a manner which made it positively dangerous to be there at all. By nightfall the rest of the fleet had passed out of sight to the eastward, scattered like chaff before the angry breath of the hurricane, and the _Princess Royal_ was left to fight out her battle alone. By dint of almost superhuman exertions, the shattered spars had been secured, the main-sail cut away from the yard, and such other dispositions made as would allow of her being kept dead before the wind, and out of the trough of the sea during the coming night; and when the captain took his seat at the head of the saloon-table at dinner that evening, he was full of boastful exultation over the prompt obedience of his crew, frequently congratulating his passengers upon their being on board a ship in charge of such capable officers as himself and his mates. Of course he did not actually say this in so many words, but the burden of his remarks amounted to it, and nothing less. The second mate had the middle watch on that eventful night, and just after he had struck four bells, and the wheel had been relieved, he was inexpressibly scandalised by hearing above the howling of the gale loud sounds of singing and jocularity on the forecastle. Such sounds were of so very unusual a character on board the _Princess Royal_ that, coupled with the circumstance of their being uttered in the middle watch of all times in the world, he was at first so astonished as to be quite unable to believe his own ears. Very soon, however, they were repeated, one of the men actually breaking into a rollicking song, the burden of which was an invocation to "Let us all be jolly, boys," under every conceivable combination of circumstances.