“Well, we shall see,” said the doctor. “Now let’s go below.”
“Right, sir. I wouldn’t do anything till you come.”
They began a tour of inspection at once, making their way as far down as they could, to find that the lower hold was eight or ten feet deep in water, which covered the heavy cargo of railway iron, machinery, casks, and miscellaneous goods.
“’Bout high water now, sir,” said the old sailor. “It’ll sink a good deal when the tide’s out. We seem to have come on at high water.”
“Would it be possible to stop it out, and in the course of time pump the vessel clear?”
“Not if we’d got fifty steam pumps, sir: that water’ll flow in and out and be always sweet—I mean salt—for she’s got plates below there ripped off like sheets of writing paper. But the water won’t hurt us, and the stores such as we want are all above it. There’s nothing to mind there.”
The doctor nodded in acquiescence, and they went on with their search, to find more and more how well they were provided for, old Bostock chuckling again and again as each advantage came home to him.
“I don’t believe no shipwrecked chaps was ever so well off before. Why, it’s wonderful how little the Susan’s hurt. Look at the store of coals we’ve got, and at the cook’s galley all ready for cooking a chicken—if we had one—or a mutton chop, if the last two sheep hadn’t been drowned and washed away along with the cow. Now, that was bad luck, sir. Drop o’ milk’d been a fine thing for that there boy if I could ha’ squeezed it out. I never did try to milk, sir, but I’d ha’ tried. Don’t suppose it would ha’ been so very hard, if the old cow would ha’ stood still. Milk would be a fine thing for him, wouldn’t it?”
“Yes, excellent,” said the doctor, with a peculiar smile; “but we have no cow, Bostock.”
“Tchah! Of course not, sir,” said the old sailor, giving himself a slap on the mouth, “and me talking like that. But hi! Look here, sir,” he continued, pointing shoreward.