“Jack,” said I, seriously, “one thing at a time. When we get you out, then it will be time enough to inquire what to do next.”
“That’s sound philosophy, Bob; where did you pick it up? I suspect you must have been studying Shakespeare of late, on the sly. But come, get behind me, and put your hands under my arms, and heave; I’ll shove with my sound limb. Now let us act together. Stay! Bob, we’ve been long enough aboard ship to know the value of a song in producing unity of action. Take the tune from me.”
Suiting the action to the word, Jack gave forth, at the top of his voice, one or two of those peculiarly nautical howls wherewith seamen are wont to constrain windlasses and capstans to creak, and anchors to let go their hold.
“Now then, heave away, my hearties; yo-heave-o-hoi!”
At the last word we both strained with all our might. I heard Jack’s braces burst with the effort. We both became purple in the face, but the leg remained immovable! With a loud simultaneous sigh we relaxed, and looking at each other groaned slightly.
“Come, come, Bob, never say die; one trial more; it was the braces that spoiled it that time. Now then, cheerily ho! my hearties, heave-yo-hee-o-Hoy!”
The united force applied this time was so great that we tore asunder all the fastenings of the leg at one wrench, and Jack and I suddenly shot straight up as if we had been discharged from a hole in the ground. Losing our balance we fell over each other on our backs—the wooden leg remaining hard and fast in the ground.
“Ah! Jack,” said I sorrowfully, as I rubbed the mud off my garments, “if we had remained at home this would not have happened.”
“If we had remained at home,” returned Jack, rather gruffly, as he hopped towards his leg, “nothing would have happened. Come, Bob, lay hold of it. Out it shall come, if the inside of the world should come along with it. There now—heave!”
This time we gave vent to no shout, but we hove with such a will, that Jack split his jacket from the waist to the neck, and the leg came out with a crack that resembled the drawing of the largest possible cork out of the biggest conceivable bottle.