He vanished in the darkness. He was absent fully five minutes, a period which, to the waiting chief officer, who alone knew what was actually happening, must have seemed like as many hours. Then Maseden returned. By this time there were two more astride the foremast, four in all. He tied the nearest one to his back with a rope.
“Can you steady yourself by placing your hands on my shoulders, but not around my neck?” he said.
For answer two slim hands caught his shoulders. He began working his way forward into the gloom.
CHAPTER IX
THE LOTTERY
Maseden’s prolonged absence on the first occasion was readily accounted for by what he had done. When he reached the end of the foremast—at the junction of spars known to the sailor as the couplings—he found that the topmast was, in fact, thrust tightly against the rock wall.
Thus far, his most sanguine calculations had been justified to the letter.
It was impossible to determine how the other end of that precarious bridge was secured. He saw at once, however, that a great strain was being placed already on the stays which attached it, by chance and loosely at first, but now with ever-increasing rigidity, to the lower mast. He thought that a vigorous kick would ease the pressure by partly freeing one of the wire ropes which had become entangled in the splintered wood.