“But, the masts have been working the decks all this time,” suggested the mate, “and if the sea has got in through the straining of the timbers we must sink in time.”
“Sink your grandmother, Marline!” retorted the captain, “you forget that our main cargo is rum, which is ever so much lighter than water, and more buoyant. As long as we have that below we’ll float, never you fear! But, the job is to cut away the masts if we can; she’ll never right, of course, till that is done. A pity your rigging was so well set up, Marline! If the sticks had only gone by the board when the squall struck us we’d be all right now.”
“I don’t know that, captain,” replied the other. “If the masts had been badly stayed they would have gone in the height of the hurricane; and then, where would we be now?”
“Not in the Sargasso Sea, I fancy,” said Captain Miles with a hearty laugh. “But we can’t do anything yet, though, till the sea has gone down more. Men,” he added, “keep your pecker up! Providence having watched over us thus far will now not desert us, I am confident, and we’ll yet weather on Mr Marline’s circumstances!”
All hands gave a cheer at this hopeful speech, and the sun having by this time dried our soddened clothes besides warming us, we began to feel more comfortable and easy, the captain’s words giving us fresh courage.
Towards noon, however, the heat brought on a most terrific thirst, which was all the more painful from our not seeing any chance of relieving it; for, although, like the “ancient mariner,” we saw “water, water everywhere,” there was not a drop of the wholesome fluid, as far as we knew, that we could drink.
In this dire calamity, Jackson proved our guardian angel.
“I say, captain,” he called out, after climbing along the bulwarks down into that part of the waist of the ship which was clear of the sea, letting himself swing down by the end of the topsail halliards which were belayed to the side, “there’s one of the water-casks lashed here that did not fetch away to leeward with the rest when she canted over; and it’s full too. If anyone has got a hat, or anything that I can draw off the water in, I will start the bung and we can all splice the main-brace.”
“Hurrah!” shouted Captain Miles. “That’s the best news I have heard for many a day. Here, Marline, pass him down my wide-awake. Mind how you drive out the bung, Jackson, and have something ready to close up the hole again; or else, all the contents of the cask will be wasted ’fore the hands are served round.”
“I’ll take care, sir,” replied the young seaman, who had now turned the end of the topsail halliards into a bight round his body, so that he could swing down in front of the water-cask and yet have his hands free.