“Guess you must have dreamed it, Tom,” suggested Joe.
“Perhaps,” admitted Tom, and yet he knew that it was no dream. “I’ll go back to bed,” he called.
The derelict drifted on, and Tom was not again disturbed that night. Jackie slept well, and so too did Professor Skeel—to judge by his snores.
“Well, now for a launching!” exclaimed Joe as the dawning light filtered through the early morning clouds. “We’ll see what luck we have.”
There was not much to do in the way of preparation, for the two sailors had very nearly finished the work on the previous day. The food and water—all that could be spared from the needs of the few remaining meals they expected to take aboard the hulk—had been put into the reconstructed lifeboat. An early and small breakfast was served, and then the work of sliding the craft off the derelict was undertaken.
As the sailor had said, this was not difficult. The deck of the lumber ship, on which the lifeboat rested, had such a slope that all that was necessary to do was to cut loose a retaining rope, and the craft would slide down on improvised rollers that had been made. This could be done when they were all aboard. It was like the launching of a small ship.
“But I think I’ll give her a trial first,” decided Abe, when all was in readiness for the launching. “I don’t want her to turn turtle, or anything like that, when we’re all aboard. Though she can’t sink, with the watertight compartments.”
“What’s your game?” asked Joe.
“Why, I think I’ll take a trip in her myself just around the hulk, so to speak, and see how she behaves. She may need trimming, or lightening, or, maybe we haven’t got the sail just right. I’ll make a trial in her.”
The others decided that this might be wise, and accordingly, when Abe had taken his place in the craft, the rope was slacked off, and the lifeboat slid into the sea.