“No rocks here. On a sandbank, and they’re trying to get her off.”
Then there was a rattling and banging noise, which came through the bulkhead.
“Why, they’re taking up the hatches over the hold.”
“Yes,” said Vince bitterly; “they’re thinking more of saving the bales than of us.”
“Down vis you, and pass ’em up,” cried the captain; and, for what seemed to be quite a couple of hours, they could hear the crew through the bulkhead busy in the hold fetching out and passing up the bales on to the deck in the most orderly way, and without a bit of excitement.
“Can’t be much danger,” said Vince at last, “or they wouldn’t go on so quietly as this.”
“I don’t know,” said Mike bitterly; “it must be bad, and they will forget us at last, and we shall be drowned, shut up here.”
“Don’t make much difference,” said Vince, with a laugh. “Better off here. Fishes won’t be able to get at us and eat us afterwards.”
“Ugh! how can you talk in that horrid way at a time like this!”
“To keep up our spirits,” said Vince. “Perhaps it isn’t so bad. She’s on a bank, I’m sure, and perhaps—yes, that’s it—they’re trying to lighten her and make her float.”