"Ashore with you!"
Robinson swung by the hands and dropped. Before he let go his hands he had felt the vessel quiver and begin to recede from her position.
"Now, men," said the skipper, "grub! She'll be off in a minute."
Every man of them leaped willingly to the imperative duty. The food was in the forecastle and hold; they disappeared. Skipper Libe kept watch on deck. With the waves restless beneath her stern, the schooner was perilously insecure. She was gradually working her way back to the sea. The briefest glance below had already assured Skipper Libe that her timbers were hopelessly sprung.
She was old—rotten with age and hard service. The water was pouring in forward and amidships; it ran aft in a flood, contributing its weight to the vessel's inclination to slip away from the berg. It was slow in the beginning, this retreat; but through every moment the movement was accelerated. Five minutes—four—three: in a space too brief to be counted upon she would be wallowing in the sea.
"Haste!" the skipper screamed.
Waiting was out of the question. The Fish Killer was about to drop into the sea. Though the men had but tumbled into the forecastle—though as yet they had had no time to seize the food of which to-morrow would find them in desperate need—the skipper roared the order to return.
"Ashore! Ashore!" he shouted.
They came back more willingly, more expeditiously, than they had gone; and they came back empty-handed. Not a man among them had so much as a single biscuit.