With infinite difficulty the mates, with the steward’s assistance, stretched more canvas, while the captain took the helm. She heeled over to it, and looked as if she hardly cared to right again. But this brought the hole in her side into view. Then they got heavy blankets up, and, working as they had never worked before, they managed in an hour and a half to staunch the leak from the outside.
Hope began to rise in their hearts, and, at the bidding of the skipper, the steward went below and brought up a large tin of preserved soup.
“Ah! men,” said poor Silas, “this is better than all the rum in the world.”
And it was, for it gave them strength and heart. They went away down below next to the galley and half-deck, and tried to rouse some of the men. They found five of them stark and stiff, and from the others came nothing but groans and oaths.
So they went to the pumps themselves, and worked away for hours for dear life itself.
Oh! what a joyful sight it was for them when, in answer to their signal of distress, they saw the good ship Arrandoon coming steaming down towards them.
Then the grim raven Death, who had been hovering over the seemingly doomed ship, flapped his ragged wings and flew slowly away.
They were saved!
Oil was pumped upon the water between the Arrandoon and Scotia, to round off the curling, comb-like peaks of the waves, and a boat was lowered from the steamer and sent to the assistance of the distressed vessel.
The ship was pumped out, and next day, the weather becoming once more fine, she was towed towards the island of Jan Mayen, and made fast to a floe. She was next heeled over and the repairs completed. The Arrandoon spared them a few spars, and plenty of willing hands to hoist them, so that in a few days the Greenland sealer was as strong as ever.