"No indeed," said Mr. Hodgson, a stout, sun-browned fellow, who looked more like a hunter than a clergyman. "We have been talking over the matter, and we are not going to desert you until the new men come. And as to breakfast, here are Mr. Litchfield and myself ready to serve as stewards, assistants, cooks, or in any culinary capacity. We both have camped out and are not green hands. So you must let us help you, and we shall consider it good fun."
"It will be funny," said Willy, "to see a minister cook! So let's go down to the kitchen. I know where it is, for I've been in it!"
"I think, Miss Croup," said Mr. Litchfield, a tall young man with black hair and side whiskers, and a good deal of manner, "that you should say galley or caboose, now that we are all nautical together."
"Well, I can't cook nautical," said Willy, "and I don't intend to try! But I guess you can eat the food if it isn't strictly naval."
In a few minutes the volunteer cooks were all at work, and Willy's familiarity with household affairs, even when exhibited under the present novel conditions, shone out brightly. She found some cold boiled potatoes, and soon set Mr. Hodgson to work frying them. Mrs. Cliff took the coffee in hand with all her ante-millionnaire skill, and Willy skipped from one thing to another, as happy as most people are whose ability has suddenly forced them to the front.
"Oh, you ought to see the Synod setting the table!" she cried, bursting into the galley. "They're getting things all wrong, but it doesn't matter, and they seem to be enjoying it. Now then, Mr. Litchfield, I think you have cut all the bread that can possibly be eaten!"
Mr. Burdette had gone on shore with the Captain, and Mr. Portman considered it his duty to remain on deck, but the volunteer corps of cooks and stewards did their work with hearty good-will, and the breakfast would have been the most jolly meal that they had yet enjoyed together if it had not been for the uncertainty and uneasiness naturally occasioned by the desertion of the crew.
It was after ten o'clock when Captain Burke and Mr. Burdette returned. "We're in a bad fix," said the former, approaching Mrs. Cliff, who, with all the passengers, had been standing together watching them come down the pier. "There was a steamer cleared from here the day before yesterday which was short-handed, and seems to have carried off all the available able seamen in the port. But I believe that is all stuff and nonsense! the real fact seems to be,--and Mr. Burdette and I've agreed on that point,--that the report has got out that we're filibusters, and nobody wants to ship with us! Everything looks like it, you see. Here we come from New York with a regular lot of passengers, but we've got arms on board, and we drop the passengers here and let them go home some other way, and we sail on, saying we're bound for Jamaica--for Cuba is a good deal nearer, you know. But the worst thing is this, and I'm bound to tell it so that you can all know how the case stands and take care of yourselves as you think best. There's reason to believe that if the government of this place has not already had its eye on us, it will have its eye on us before very long, and for my part I'd give a good deal of money to be able to get away before they do; but without a crew we can't do it!"