“The ship is sinking, sir, and the men have seized the boats. They are going to leave her, you better come.”
“You cowards!” cried the captain, springing up and seizing his revolver. “I will shoot the first man who attempts to leave the vessel.”
This was only what the scoundrel of a mate expected. He darted out of the state-room and locked the door.
The captain was a prisoner, probably to be drowned like a rat in its hole.
When the sun rose about six next day, like a big, blood orange shimmering red through the horizon’s haze, the good barque Vulture lay like a log upon the water, and reeled like a drunken man. The waves were high, but there was not a breath of wind. Only those smooth, oily-looking billows.
The children had to be told of the danger now, for at any time the Vulture might take her final plunge. But they bore up most bravely.
The captain had been set free again, and he, with Fitzroy himself and the giant, set about cutting away every stick. Few sailors could wield axe or adze as Gourmand did. It was splendid to see the splinters fly! But thus relieved, and the rolling seas going down, the vessel recovered herself.
She might float a long time yet. But for a time she was at the mercy of the currents, or of any breeze that might blow.
Two little jury-masts were rigged just to catch the wind, which soon came from the south-east, only bits of staysails, but they served the purpose of keeping her head before it.
Every day they kept looking out for the ship that never passed their way, and every night they burned a light.