This unnerving discovery was made by the cook, who was horrified to see a ruby stream pouring into the earliest kettle.

Thinking that an iron pipe had become oxidized with startling rapidity, he tried another tap.
Finally, there could be no blinking the fact that, by some uncanny means, the whole of the fresh water on board had acquired the color if not the taste of a thin Burgundy.
Coke was summoned hastily.

_Noblesse oblige_; being captain, he valiantly essayed the task of sampling this strange beverage.
"It ain't p'ison," he announced, gazing suspiciously at the little group of anxious-faced men who awaited his verdict.

"It sartinly ain't p'ison, but it's wuss nor any teetotal brew I've tackled in all me born days.

'Ere, Watts, you know the tang of every kind o' likker--'ave a sup ?" "Not me!" said Watts.