It has taken her
mind off her father and filled her waking hours with work to do.
This afternoon, standing above the open booby-hatch, I heard her
laugh ring out as in the old days coming down the Atlantic. Yes, and
she hums snatches of songs under her breath as she works. In the
second dog-watch this evening, after Mr. Pike had finished dinner and
joined us on the poop, she told him that if he did not soon re-rig
his phonograph she was going to start in on the piano. The reason
she advanced was the psychological effect such sounds of revelry
would have on the starving mutineers.
The days pass, and nothing of moment happens. We get nowhere. The
Elsinore, without the steadying of her canvas, rolls emptily and
drifts a lunatic course. Sometimes she is bow on to the wind, and at
other times she is directly before it; but at all times she is
circling vaguely and hesitantly to get somewhere else than where she
is. As an illustration, at daylight this morning she came up into
the wind as if endeavouring to go about.
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