“They aren’t sinking, are they?” cried George.
“Sinking—nothing,” replied B. C., turning his head. “They’ll get back ashore with their sweeps. If they were, it’d be a good job. What’s the damage, Hank?”
“Bob stay gone,” came Hank’s voice. “Bowsprit seems all right—Lord, it’s a miracle.”
Then he came aft having set Charley and the Chinks on repairs.
“B. C.,” said Hank, “you’re a marvel. What put it into your nut to do it?”
“It came to me,” said the other, “they’d have done it to us in another tick, got fast and downed us. Hit first—that’s my motto.”
“Well,” said Hank, “you’ve done it.”
Away back in the moonlight across the heave of the sea, they could make out the dismasted wreck floundering like a drunken thing, listing to starboard with the weight of her broken wing, gastados, out of the running—done for.