While thus employed, the mate came behind him, with his cat-like step,
and said, "See what has come on us with your forebodings! It is the
unluckiest thing in the world to talk about losing a ship when she is at
sea."

"You are a more dangerous man on board a ship than I am," was Hazel's
prompt reply.

The well gave an increase of three inches. Mr. Hazel now showed excellent
qualities. He worked like a horse; and, finding the mate skulking, he
reproached him before the men, and, stripping himself naked to the waist,
invited him to do a man's duty. The mate, thus challenged, complied with
a scowl.

They labored for their lives, and the quantity of water they discharged
from the ship was astonishing; not less than hundred and ten tons every
hour.

They gained upon the leak--only two inches; but, in the struggle for
life, this was an immense victory. It was the turn of the tide.

A slight breeze sprung up from the southwest, and the captain ordered the
men from the buckets to make all sail on the ship, the pumps still going.

When this was done, he altered the ship's course and put her right before
the wind, steering for the island of Juan Fernandez, distant eleven
hundred miles or thereabouts.

Probably it was the best thing he could do, in that awful waste of water.
But its effect on the seamen was bad. It was like giving in. They got a