He had been busily engaged overseeing the construction of a species of coffer-dam across the shore at right angles and up to the keel of the ship at the point where the tide came up to, just by the mizzen-chains; so that the water should not get down into the excavation that the men were digging until this should be deep enough to float the vessel, or, at all events, assist in easing her off the beach—for, if flooded prematurely, the labour would be doubled.
The hands helping him having, however, deserted for the nonce and joined the rest of the crowd around Tom Bullover and Hiram, he came up, also, to the spot where all of us were standing, with the object of coaxing his gang back to their task. The sound of the men’s wild shout and the skipper’s voice, raised in anger, as he thought, hastened his footsteps, too, for he feared that some mischief was brewing, and that the crew had mutinied at the least.
The moment he got near, though, he could perceive, from the grinning faces and expression of those close by, that nothing very desperate was in the wind; and, he was just on the point of asking what the row was about, when, all at once, he caught sight of the image.
“Mein Gott!” he ejaculated, looking the picture of astonishment, and more excited than I had ever seen him, from the first day I stepped on board the ship until now,—“it vas ze Madonna of ze golt. Ze Madonna of ze golt!”
We all stared at him, filled with wonder at his apparent recognition of the figure. The skipper, however, at once interrogated him on the point.
“Jehosophat, mister!” cried Captain Snaggs, with mixed curiosity and impatience—“what d’ye mean? Hev ye ever seed this hyar figger afore?”
“Yase,” said the Dane, in his deep voice; “yase, I vas zee him one long time befores I vas know him ver’ well!”
“Thunder, ye don’t mean it! What, this durned identical image?”
“Yase, mitout doubt. I vas know dat zame idenzigal vigure,” replied the other imperturbably, his passing fit of excitement having cooled, leaving him as calm and impassive as usual. “It vas ze Madonna of ze golt dat we vas loose overboart from ze schgooners, one, doo, dree year ago.”
The skipper looked at him, without speaking further for a second or more, Jan Steenbock confronting him as steadfastly and placidly as a periwinkle might have been under the circumstances; while all of us around gazed at them both, open-mouthed with expectancy.