The battered Kenilworth lay heeled far over to one side, looming forlornly from the Reef in the midst of a smooth and sparkling sea. Her sides were gray with brine and streaked red with rust, her grimy decks strewn with a chaotic litter of cargo, timbers, and rigging. The once trim, seagoing steamer made a most distressful picture as seen from the Resolute which was bearing down from the direction of Key West. Captain Bruce was standing in the bows of the tug. Gazing at his helpless ship, he found it very hard to realize that he had deliberately placed the Kenilworth in this pitiful plight.
She looked as if she had laid her bones on the Reef for good and all, but it was plain to see that the wreckers did not think so. Cargo was tumbling from her ports into lighters strung alongside, tugs hovered fussily near-by, and groups of active men toiled at capstans, derrick-booms, and donkey-engines.
She looked as if she had laid her bones on the Reef for good and all
"It looks like trying to float her before long," Captain Wetherly sung down from the wheel-house of the Resolute. "Come up here, Captain Bruce. I want to show you something."
The master of the Kenilworth mounted the ladder with an air of reluctance, for it hurt him even to talk about the ship. He looked worn and haggard and he could not rid himself of a great dread lest the Kenilworth might not be floated after all.
He was cheered, however, by the buoyant confidence of Captain Jim Wetherly who exclaimed with a note of mirth in his voice:
"There's a sight to make you rub your eyes, Captain Bruce. That is Jerry Pringle's tug from Tampa on the port quarter of the Kenilworth. And there he goes up the side. Hooray! see him chase that gang of his down the hatch. He is surely shoving the job along for all he's worth. That's his way when he once buckles down to it."
"But you were fighting each other alongside my ship not long ago. I don't understand it," commented Captain Bruce.