Away to port the line of the Californian coast showed beyond the heave of the sea from Point Arguello to Point Concepcion, and to starboard and west of the San Lucas a dot in the sun dazzle marked the peaks of the island of San Nicolas.
Then, as the Heart of Ireland came round and the full view of the south of San Juan burst upon them, the wreck piled on the rocks came in sight, and anchored quarter of a mile off the shore—a Chinese junk!
Harman swore.
Ginnell, seizing his glasses, rushed forward and looked through them at the wreck.
“It’s swarmin’ with chows,” cried he, coming aft “They seem to have only just landed be the look of them. Keep her as she goes, and be ready with the anchor there forrard; we’ll scupper them yet. Mr. Harman, be plazed to fetch up that lin’th of lead pipe you’ll find on the cabin flure be the door. Capt’in, will you see with Charlie here to the boat while I get the anchor ready for droppin’? Them coolies is all thumbs.”
He went forward, and the Heart of Ireland, with the wind spilling out of her mainsail, came along over the heaving blue swell, satin-smooth here in the shelter of the island.
Truly the Yun-Shan, late Robert Bullmer, had made a masterpiece of her last business. She had come stem on, lifted by the piling sea, and had hit the rocks, smashing every bow plate from the keel to within a yard or two of the gunwale, then a wave had taken her under the stern and lifted her and flung her broadside on, just as she now lay, pinned to her position by the rock horns that had gored her side, and showing a space of her rust-red bottom to the sun.
The water was squattering among the rocks right up to her, the phosphor-bronze propeller showed a single blade cocked crookedly at the end of the broken screw shaft; rudder there was none, the funnel was gone, spar deck and bridge were in wreck and ruin, while the cowl of a bent ventilator turned seaward seemed contemplating with a languid air the beauty of the morning and the view of the far-distant San Lucas Islands.
The Heart of Ireland picked up a berth inside the junk, and as the rasp and rattle of the anchor chain came back in faint echoes from the cliff, a gong on the junk woke to life and began to snarl and roar its warning to the fellows on the wreck.
“Down with the boat!” cried Ginnell. With the “lin’th of lead pipe,” a most formidable weapon, sticking from his pocket, he ran to help with the falls. The whaleboat smacked the water, the crew tumbled in, and with Ginnell in the bow, it started for the shore.