This was clapped on, a good solid deal lid made by the ship’s carpenter, with holes bored and screws in them, all ready, and as soon as it was on, Oliver, with his sleeves rolled up and the muscles working beneath his clear white skin, attacked the screws, and soon had them all tightly in their places. Then a rope was made fast, the word given to those on deck, and the chest was run up in no time.
Five minutes later Oliver was equipped in light flannel jacket and sun helmet, his gun over his shoulder and all ready fur action.
“Going for a stroll?” said Mr Rimmer, as they stepped down from the deck to where he was superintending the planking of the lugger, whose framework had been slid down on a kind of cradle, where it now stood parallel with the brig, it having been found advisable to get her down from the deck for several reasons, notably her rapidly increasing weight and her being so much in the way.
“But suppose the enemy comes and finds her alongside? They might burn her.”
“They’d burn or bake us if we kept her up here,” said the mate, shortly, “for we should not have room to move.”
So there it was, down alongside, rapidly approaching completion, the men having toiled away with a will, feeling how necessary it was to have a way open for escape, and working so well that most of them soon began to grow into respectable shipyard labourers, one or two, under the guidance of the ship’s carpenter, promising to develop soon into builders.
The mate was very busy with a caulking hammer in one hand, a wedge in the other, driving tar-soaked oakum between the planks so as to make a water-tight seam, and as the young men came up he wiped his steamy brow with his arm, and looked at all with good-humoured satisfaction.
“Yes, we’re going to inspect a discovery I have made,” said Panton, importantly. “Like to join us?”
“Well, I should like,” replied the mate, “and I think I—no: resolution for ever. Not a step will I take till I’ve got the Little Planet finished. She’s rough, but I believe she’ll go.”
“When you get her to the sea.”