Now, of our party of ten who had been received on board the _Indian Queen_, six of us were wounded, and of those six three were so severely hurt as to be quite unfit for duty, and the other three, of whom I was one, were able to do such deck duty as keeping a look-out, taking a trick at the wheel, and so on, but, excepting myself, were scarcely fit to go aloft just yet.  But I did not think it right or desirable that those of us who were in a fit state to work should eat the bread of idleness.  I had therefore seized the opportunity afforded by my talk with the skipper that morning to suggest that my four unwounded and two slightly-wounded men should assist in the working of the ship; as for myself, I said that I should be very pleased to take charge of one of the watches, if such an arrangement would be of any assistance to him. This, of course, was quite the right and proper thing for me to do, and although the ship carried a complement of thirty hands, all told, I was not in the least surprised that Williams should accept, quite as a matter of course, my offer of the men, three of whom he placed in the port watch, and three in the starboard, the latter being under the boatswain, a big, bullying, brow-beating fellow named Tonkin.  But he declined the offer of my personal services, saying that he could do quite well without them.  This arrangement having been come to, I made it my business to speak to the boatswain, into whose watch the two slightly-wounded men had been put, informing him of what had passed between the skipper and myself, and requesting him not to send the wounded men aloft, as I did not consider that they could safely venture into the rigging in their partially disabled condition.  And I also cautioned the men not to attempt to go aloft, should the boatswain happen to forget what I had told him, and order them to do so, taking care to give them this caution in Tonkin's presence and hearing in order that there might be no mistake or misunderstanding.