Several days elapsed, and I never saw Ricardo, although I was told by Lotta and Mammy that he had frequently looked in upon me while I slept. Thanks to good nursing, I was making very satisfactory progress, although still far too weak and ill to be able to rise from my bed. Meanwhile I was able to see, by simply looking out of my bedroom window, that the _Barracouta_ was being rapidly refitted--so rapidly, indeed, that I conjectured Ricardo must have made a point of always keeping an entire spare set of masts, spars, rigging, and sails on hand, in readiness for any such emergency as that which had arisen in connection with his fight with the _Francesca_.