S'pose we was makin' Bahia on the homeward run, an' that 'appened! It 'ud be the end of the pore ole ship; an' oo'd credit it?
Not a soul.

They'd all say 'Jimmie threw 'er away!' Oh, I know 'em, the swine--never a good word for a man while 'e keeps straight, but tar an' feathers the minnit 'e 'as a misforchun!" Hozier found a gnawed piece of ham-bone lying in the exact position anticipated by Coke.

An elderly salt who had served with the P.& O.
recalled a similar incident as having occurred on board an Indian mail steamer while passing through the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb.

He drew a lurid picture of the captain's dash across the forms of lady passengers sleeping inside a curtained space on deck, and his location of the area of disturbance with an ax just in time to prevent a disaster.
The carpenter busied himself with sawing and hammering during the whole of the next two days, for the _Andromeda_ revealed many gaps in her woodwork, but the escapade of an errant ham-bone was utterly eclipsed by a new sensation.

At daybreak one morning every drop of water in the vessel's tanks suddenly assumed a rich, blood-red tint.