"When do we get our next grub, sir?" Nosey Murphy asked, as the
steward served the supplies down to him from the poop.
"At midday," I answered. "And as long as you and your gang are good,
you'll get your grub three times each day. You can choose your own
watches any way you please. But the ship's work must be done, and
done properly. If it isn't, then the grub stops. That will do. Now
go for'ard."
"One thing more, sir," he said quickly. "Bert Rhine is awful bad.
He can't see, sir. It looks like he's going to lose his face. He
can't sleep. He groans all the time."
It was a busy day. I made a selection of things from the medicine-
chest for the acid-burned gangster; and, finding that Murphy knew how
to manipulate a hypodermic syringe, entrusted him with one.
Then, too, I practised with the sextant and think I fairly caught the
sun at noon and correctly worked up the observation. But this is
latitude, and is comparatively easy. Longitude is more difficult.
But I am reading up on it.
All afternoon a gentle northerly fan of air snored the Elsinore
through the water at a five-knot clip, and our course lay east for
land, for the habitations of men, for the law and order that men
institute whenever they organize into groups.
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