noon
Having secured possession of the brig , and succeeded in coercing me to become their navigator to some island in the Pacific , the locality of which they had as yet kept secret , upon an errand the nature of which they had not seen fit to divulge to me , the crew at once went industriously to work , under O'Gorman , to put the vessel all ataunto once more , by routing out and sending aloft spare topgallant-masts and yards , bending new sails , overhauling and making good the rigging , and , in short , repairing all damage of every description ; and with such goodwill did they work that in ten days from the date of their seizure of the brig everything had been done that it was possible to do , and , so far as the outward appearance of the craft was concerned , there was nothing to show that anything had ever been wrong with her . Meanwhile , during the progress of this renovating process , the steward had made it his business to give the lazarette a thorough stock-taking overhaul , of the result of which I was kept ignorant . But I gathered that the examination was not altogether satisfactory ; for when it was over , and the steward had made his report to O'Gorman , the latter came to me and anxiously demanded to know what our distance then was from the Horn . This was on the afternoon of the third day after the seizure of the brig , and upon carefully measuring off the distance from our position at noon on that day , I found that it amounted to three thousand seven hundred and some odd miles . The distance seemed to be a staggerer to the fellow , and when , in reply to a further question , I informed him that he might reckon upon the brig taking nearly or quite a month to cover it , he made no attempt to conceal his dismay . That something was radically wrong at once became apparent , for there were long conclaves in the forecastle , the object of which , presumably , was to determine how to meet the emergency . I shrewdly suspected that this emergency arose out of the unexpected discovery that the brig 's stock of provisions , or water , or both , was insufficient to carry us to our destination ; and I fervently hoped that my conjecture might prove correct , as in that case we should be compelled to touch somewhere to renew our stock ; and I felt that if in such a case I failed to secure the arrest of the whole party for piracy I should richly deserve to remain their tool , exposed to the countless vacillating and dangerous humours of a gang of ruffians who had deliberately thrown off every restraint of law and order .