“We are lost!” cried one of the sailors. “We shall go down in another hour!”
Two of the men on board, one a carpenter and the other a cabinet maker, went below and made an examination of the leaks for the third time. They reported two new leaks, but said both might be stopped up. Canvas was brought out for that purpose, and several planks torn from the cabin, and the pair set to work. In the end the worst leaks were mended and then the water came in no more rapidly than it had early in the morning.
Yet the prospect was a gloomy one, and as night came on the fears of those on board increased. The wind had driven the ship for miles out of her course, and even the captain could not tell how close they were to land.
“We may be thirty, and we may be sixty miles,” said he, in reply to a question from Gilbert.
“Then there is no danger of our striking on the rocks?”
“I will not say that. There are a great number of rocks and sunken reefs in this vicinity.”
Utterly worn out with watching, a few on board of the O-Taka fell asleep. Gilbert could scarcely keep his eyes open, yet he felt in no mental condition to retire. Some of the children cried bitterly, especially because of the scantiness of the rations provided. Everything to eat and to drink was dealt out sparingly, for nobody could tell how long the stores would have to last.
It was a night that appeared to have no end, and when at last day broke it found the watchers all but exhausted. Now some of the sailors slept, only awaking when their strength was needed at the pump or the water buckets.
All day long an anxious lookout was kept for a sail, but none came within hailing distance. Once a bark passed to the southward, and they saw the smoke of a steamer to the westward, but that was all.
With the mainmast gone the O-Taka merely crawled along at a speed of less than five knots an hour. To rig a jury mast was out of the question, since most of the canvas belonging to the ship had either been lost overboard or used to stop up the worst of the leaks.