"We have caulked all hatches and gratings forward, and stopped the ventilators," he said. "I reckon the water will leave the deck long enough for the pump to give her fore-end some buoyancy. If she rises with the flood tide, well heave the cables aft, until we can get a hold that will lift her bow from the ground. Then you can pump out the fore hold and we'll make a fresh start aft. We'll soon know if Cartwright's notion is correct."
"We know now; I'll satisfy you in the morning," Lister rejoined and his confidence was not exaggerated.
A steamer's hull below her load-line is pierced in places to admit water for the condensers and ballast tanks. Lister had found some inlets open, but now they were shut.
"I'll own old Cartwright's a great man," Brown said thoughtfully. "When he takes on a job he studies things all round. The salvage folks, no doubt, reckoned on the possibility that the valves were open, but they couldn't get at the controls and didn't know all Cartwright knew—" He paused and added with a laugh: "I wonder how much the other fellows got for the job! But it's time we started."
Lister got up with an effort and went to the pump, which presently began to throb. The mended engine ran well and the regular splash of water, flung out from the big discharge pipe, drowned the languid rumble of the surf. The hull shook; shadowy figures crossed the beam of light from the furnace, and vanished in the dark. Twinkling lamps threw broken reflections on the water that looked like black silk, lightning flashed in the background, and when the swell broke with phosphorescent sparkles about the wreck Lister marked the height the pale illumination crept up her plates. She would not lift that tide, but the pump was clearing the hold, and he hoped much water was not coming in. If the leakage was not excessive, her bow ought to rise when the next tide flowed.
For some hours he kept his watch, dragging himself wearily about the engine and pump. He had helpers, but control was his, and to an engineer a machine is not a dead mass of metal. Lister, so to speak, felt the pump had individuality and temperament, like a spirited horse. Sometimes it must be humored and sometimes urged; it would run faster for a man whose touch was firm but light than for another. Perhaps he was fanciful, and he was certainly over-strung, but he imagined the big, rattling machine knew his hand.
At length when he looked at the gauge glass he found he could not see the line that marked the water-level. His head swam and his legs shook, and calling a fireman to keep watch, he sat down in the coal. He wanted to get to the awning, out of the dew, but could not, and leaning against the rough blocks, he went to sleep.
In the morning, he knew the fever that bothered him now and then had returned. For all that, he must hold out and he began his labor in the burning sun. When the flood tide rippled about the wreck it was obvious the pump was getting the water down. The bows lifted, and starting the winches, they hauled aft the ropes. If they could keep it, before long they might heave her from the sand.
It was a time of stubborn effort and crushing strain. Some of the men were sick and all had lost their vigor. The fierce sun had not burned but bleached their skin; their blood was poisoned by the miasma the land breeze blew off at night. For all that, Cartwright's promise was they should share his reward and somehow they held on.
At length, in the scorching heat one afternoon when the flood tide began to run, they hauled the hulk and tug abaft the wreck's engine-room and made the great ropes fast. If Lister's calculations were accurate, the pump had thrown out enough water, and the buoyancy of the other craft would lift the wreck's stern. If not—but he refused to think about this.