"The glass is steady," replied Mr. McKay. "If it should pipe up, we must slip the slings and let the canoes take their chance."
That afternoon Ellerton and Andy were busy preparing additional slings, for the former was resolved not to have a repetition of the morning's failure if it could be avoided.
Just before low water on the following morning, the salvage party set out for the wreck. As Mr. McKay had predicted, the weather was fine, there being no swell to speak of within the lagoon, though as usual the breakers were lashing themselves into milk-white foam upon the outer fringe of the reef.
Once more the slings were hove tight, and as the tide rose, the wrecked craft was again lifted from her ocean bed. Directly the yawl was "lively," as Ellerton expressed it, two more slings were passed underneath her keel so as to make doubly sure of her being swung properly.
CHAPTER XXII
THE TREASURE CHAMBER
At high water the wrecked craft was moved for a distance of nearly a hundred yards towards the shore ere she grounded. This completed the day's work, and on the following morning at low tide the "slack" was again taken in so as to enable the rising tide again to lift the yawl clear of the bottom.
This time, owing to the bed of the lagoon shoaling more rapidly, only twenty yards were gained.
"It will be a tiring and tedious job, I can see," said Terence. "How are we to manage when the hull is brought close in shore?"