Another
time his vessel was compelled to put back twice to the Falklands for
repairs. And still another time, in a wooden ship running back in
distress to the Falklands, his vessel was lost in a shift of gale in
the very entrance to Port Stanley. As he told me:
"And after we'd been there a month, sir, who should come in but the
old Lucy Powers. She was a sight!--her foremast clean gone out of
her and half her spars, the old man killed from one of the spars
falling on him, the mate with two broken arms, the second mate sick,
and what was left of the crew at the pumps. We'd lost our ship, so
my skipper took charge, refitted her, doubled up both crews, and we
headed the other way around, pumping two hours in every watch clear
to Honolulu."
The poor wretched chickens! Because of their ill-judged moulting
they are quite featherless. It is a marvel that one of them
survives, yet so far we have lost only six. Margaret keeps the
kerosene stove going, and, though they have ceased laying, she
confidently asserts that they are all layers and that we shall have
plenty of eggs once we get fine weather in the Pacific.
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