“Well, captain,” said Uncle Paul, while Rodd, who had kept close to his young friend of the Dartmoor stream, eagerly listened for what their expert had to say.
“Well, sir,” he said, at last, as he took out a little seal-skin bag and deliberately helped himself to a little ready-cut scrap of pigtail tobacco, “your craft’s in a bad way, and if something isn’t done pretty smart she’ll be down at the bottom before long.”
“Yes, yes,” cried the Count impatiently, “but we have tried everything, and it is impossible to get at the leak.”
“Hah! Tried everything, have you, sir?”
“Yes, yes,” cried the Count. “Some of my brave fellows have been half-drowned in diving, trying to plug from inside, using yards to force bags of oakum into the holes.”
“Yes,” said the skipper. “The ball went right through, I suppose?”
“Yes, yes,” cried the Count, and Rodd noted that he was having hard work to master his impatience and annoyance at the skipper’s annoyingly deliberate treatment of their urgent needs.
“So I suppose,” said the skipper coolly, “but mebbe you haven’t done quite all; leastwise I should like to try my little plan, and if it don’t answer, why, you won’t be any worse off than you are now; and when I give it up as a bad job, why, you will have to take to your boats and we shall have to find room for you aboard the schooner. Now then, please, you will just order two more men at that pump, and four more ready to take their places so as to keep on pumping hard.”
“Yes, yes,” cried the Count eagerly. “What next?”
“Order up what spare sails you’ve got from the store-room, and a few coils of new line.”