"When we have caulked some seams she will not leak much, and if it does not blow again, she will lie here until the tides get high. In the meantime, we will heave out the ballast and land it on the beach. Then perhaps at the new moon we can kedge her across to the pool."
"The job will be long," said Kit. "My men must rest to-day. In the morning we will get to work."
They began at sunrise next day, but the work was hard. Cayman had been built for speed and when sail was set would not stand up without a large quantity of ballast. The ballast was iron kentledge, moulded to fit her frames, and when the floors were up the men, crouching in the dark, pulled the heavy blocks out of the bilge-water. Except for an hour or two at low tide Cayman did not lie quiet; when the water lifted her she rolled. The blocks were sent up in a sling and lowered into the boat, which did not carry much and must be rowed for half a mile across angry waves. Near the beach an anchor was dropped, and when she swung head to sea her crew jumped over and carried the iron through the surf. Sometimes they were forced to wait, and sometimes to haul off the boat.
All hands were needed, and after a day or two Kit's muscles ached and his bruised hands bled. When his limbs were cramped by crawling among the timbers in the hold, he went off in the boat, and clasping a fifty-six-pound lump of iron laboured up the hammered beach. Sometimes a roller, frothing round his waist, urged him on, and sometimes he stopped and braced himself against the backwash. The bottom was not firm; gravel and sand rolled up and down and buried his sinking feet. Moreover, he knew the iron he laboriously carried up must all be carried back.
When the ballast was out the captain hesitated. On the Moorish coast sheltered ports are not numerous, and for the most part Cayman landed and shipped cargo from anchorages behind the sands and reefs. In consequence, her main anchor and cable were very large and heavy, but the captain thought the vessel must be further lightened in order to float across the shoals. Now the iron was landed, she rolled violently, and one hot afternoon, Kit, holding on by a runner, leaned against the bulwarks. Macallister and Miguel occupied the hatch coaming, the captain the grating by the tiller.
"If we do not land the anchor, she may strike when we kedge her across the sand," he said. "If she gets across and it blows hard we will need the big anchor and all the chain to hold her. We must run one of two risks."
"If she strikes on the high sand she will stop for good," Miguel remarked. "In two or three tides the surf would break her up."
"I think that is so," the captain agreed. "In the pool she might ride to the small anchor and the kedge. It depends on the wind. I do not know if we will get much wind or not."
Miguel shrugged and used the Castilian rejoinder, "Quien sabe?" which implies that nobody knows.
The captain lighted a cigarette. He was obviously irresolute, and Kit sympathised. One could not weigh the risks and the choice was hard.