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The rain was falling in perfect sheets, in a way you never see except round about the tropics. ‘It’s a good thing we’re inside,’ said William Anderson, ‘for if we’d been out in this rain we’d been drowned in the boat.’ I agreed with him, and we made up our minds to stay where we were until the rain was over. Well, it rained about four hours; and when it stopped, and we looked out, we saw our little boat nearly full of water, and sunk so deep that if one of us had stepped on her she’d have gone down, sure. ‘Here’s a pretty kittle of fish,’ said William Anderson; ‘there’s nothing for us to do now but to stay where we are.’ I believe in his heart he was glad of that, for if ever a man was tired of a little boat, William Anderson was tired of that one we’d been in for two days and two nights. At any rate, there was no use talking about it, and we set to work to make ourselves comfortable. We got some mattresses and pillows out of the state-rooms, and when it began to get dark we lighted the lamp–which we had filled with sweet-oil from a flask in the pantry, not finding any other kind–and we hung it from the railing of the stairs. We had a good night’s rest, and the only thing that disturbed me was William Anderson lifting up his head every time he turned over and saying how much better this was than that blasted little boat. The next morning we had a good breakfast, even making some tea with a spirit-lamp we found, using brandy instead of alcohol. William Anderson and I wanted to get into the captain’s room–which was near the stern and pretty high up–so as to see if there was anything there that we ought to get ready to save when a vessel should come along and pick us up; but we were not good at climbing, like Sam, and we didn’t see how we could get up there. Sam said he was sure he had once seen a ladder in the compartment just forward of the bulkhead, and as William was very anxious to get up to the captain’s room, we let the boy go and look for it. There was a sliding door in the bulkhead under our feet, and we opened this far enough to let Sam get through; and he scrambled down like a monkey into the next compartment, which was light enough, although the lower half of it, which was next to the engine-room, was under the water-line. Sam actually found a ladder with hooks at one end of it, and while he was handing it up to us–which was very hard to do, for he had to climb up on all sorts of things–he let it topple over, and the end with the iron hooks fell against the round glass of one of the port-holes. The glass was very thick and strong, but the ladder came down very heavy and shivered it. As bad luck would have it, this window was below the water-line, and the water came rushing in in a big spout. We chucked blankets down to Sam for him to stop up the hole, but ’twas of no use; for it was hard for him to get at the window, and when he did the water came in with such force that he couldn’t get a blanket into the hole. We were afraid he’d be drowned down there, and told him to come out as quick as he could. He put up the ladder again, and hooked it on to the door in the bulkhead, and we held it while he climbed up. Looking down through the doorway, we saw, by the way the water was pouring in at the opening, that it wouldn’t be long before that compartment was filled up; so we shoved the door to and made it all tight, and then said William Anderson, ‘The ship’ll sink deeper and deeper as that fills up, and the water may get up to the cabin door, and we must go and make that as tight as we can.’ Sam had pulled the ladder up after him, and this we found of great use in getting to the foot of the cabin stairs. We shut the cabin door, and locked and bolted it; and as it fitted pretty tight, we didn’t think it would let in much water if the ship sunk that far. But over the top of the cabin stairs were a couple of folding doors, which shut down horizontally when the ship was in its proper position, and which were only used in very bad, cold weather. These we pulled to and fastened tight, thus having a double protection against the water. Well, we didn’t get this done any too soon, for the water did come up to the cabin door, and a little trickled in from the outside door and through the cracks in the inner one. But we went to work and stopped these up with strips from the sheets, which we crammed well in with our pocket-knives. Then we sat down on the steps and waited to see what would happen next.