"Well, that is not so soon answered, Mr. Woolston," returned Bob. "We're both on us stout, and healthy, and of good courage, Mr. Mark; but 'twould be a desperate long way for two hands to carry a wessel of four hundred tons, to take the old 'Cocus from this here anchorage, all the way to the coast of America; and short of the coast there's no ra'al hope for us. Howsever, sir, that is a subject that need give us no consarn."
"I do not see that, Bob; we shall have to do it, unless we fall in with something at sea, could we only once get the vessel; out from among these reefs."
"Ay, ay, sir—could' we get her out from among these reefs, indeed! There's the rub, Mr. Woolston; but I fear 't will never be 'rub and go.'"
"You think, then, we are too fairly in for it, ever to get the ship clear?"
"Such is just my notion, Mr. Woolston, on that subject, and I've no wish to keep it a secret. In my judgment, was poor Captain Crutchely alive and back at his post, and all hands just as they was this time twenty-four hours since, and the ship where she is now, that here she would have to stay. Nothing short of kedging can ever take the wessel clear of the reefs to windward on us, and man-of-war kedging could hardly do it, then."
"I am sorry to hear you say this," answered Mark, gloomily, "though I feared as much myself."
"Men is men, sir, and you can get no more out on 'em than is in 'em. I looked well at these reefs, sir, when aloft, and they're what I call as hopeless affairs as ever I laid eyes on. If they lay in any sort of way, a body might have some little chance of getting through 'em, but they don't lay, no how. 'T would be 'luff' and 'keep her away' every half minute or so, should we attempt to beat up among 'em; and who is there aboard here to brace up, and haul aft, and ease off, and to swing yards sich as our'n?"
"I was not altogether without the hope, Bob, of getting the ship into clear water: though I have thought it would be done with difficulty, I am still of opinion we had better try it, for the alternative is a very serious matter."
"I don't exactly understand what you mean by attorneytives, Mr. Mark; though it's little harm, or little good that any attorney can do the old 'Cocus, now! But, as for getting this craft through them reefs, to windward, and into clear water, it surpasses the power of man. Did you just notice the tide-ripples, Mr. Mark, when you was up in the cross-trees?"
"I saw them, Bob, and am fully aware of the difficulty of running as large a vessel as this among them, even with a full crew. But what will become of us, unless we get the ship into open water?"