“To get her moored here to be of no use.”
“Come, and let’s see what can be done.”
The two youths descended the rope-ladder beneath the lower gun, and spent some time in examining the vessel, but were compelled to give up in despair. She was securely moored so that they could easily get on to the water-washed decks, where there were a couple of fixed pumps, but these had been tried again and again; and, as the men said, it was like trying to pump the Atlantic dry to go on toiling at a task where the water flowed in as fast as it was drawn out.
“There’s no getting at the leak even if we knew where it was,” said Roylance.
“I think the same,” said Syd, “so we may as well get all the wood out of her we can, and lay it on the rocks to dry.”
This task was begun, and for two days the men worked well; some cutting, others dragging off planks with crowbars, while the rest bore the wood to the foot of the rocky wall, where it was hauled up and laid to dry in the hottest parts of the natural fort.
It was on the third day from the beginning of this task, as the pile of dripping wood they had taken from the wreck began to grow broad and high, while endless numbers of riven pieces were ranged in the full sunshine, and sent forth a quivering transparent vapour into the heated air, that Syd, who was standing ankle-deep in water on a cross-beam directing the men, and warning them not to make a false step on account of the sharks, suddenly uttered a cry—
“Look out!” he shouted, and there was a rush for the rock, where as soon as they were on safely the men began to roar with laughter.
“Beg pardon, sir,” said Rogers, touching his hat, as he stood axe in hand; “but seeing as how he tried to eat me, oughtn’t we to try and eat he?”
The “he” pointed to was a long, lean, hungry-looking shark which had been cruising about the side of the vessel, whose bulwarks had all been ripped off and deck torn up, so that she floated now like a huge tub whose centre was crossed by broad beams. So open was the vessel that it had needed very little effort on the part of a shark to make a rush, glide in over the ragged side, and then begin floundering about in the water, and over and under the beams which had supported the deck.