Jack promised, being certain that he would not sleep himself. But ten minutes later each of the three boys was slumbering, and Bill Glass, the acrid smoke from his pipe trailing out of the tent, sat open-eyed awaiting the dawn.
CHAPTER XXIV
Old Verny’s Wharf
The sun came up over a heaving sea and the gale diminished. By five o’clock, although the wind still blew hard, it had shifted a point or two and Bill Glass predicted that by forenoon it would be gone. Sleepy-eyed the boys tumbled out of the tent and followed Bill around the side of the hill. There is always something depressing in the sight of a wrecked ship and none of them spoke for several minutes.
The schooner lay gripped between the two ledges, her bow high out of the water and the seas rushing across her abaft of the foremast. Her deck had been swept clean and not a boat was in sight. She had settled on a nearly even keel. The mainmast was broken short off some eight feet above the deck and although it had been cut away it still wallowed alongside, held by a rope or two. The foremast stood, but the topmast hung in splinters. As far as could be seen, however, the hull had not broken and Bill thought she was not leaking much.
“She be an old-timer,” said Bill. “The Jupiter, just as I told ye last night. They made ’em staunch and able twenty years ago, mates. She be one o’ your father’s boats, mate, an’ likely she be well filled with fish. Maybe they’ll get her off, but she’s lyin’ ugly, she’s lyin’ ugly.” And Bill shook his head.
“They’ll send tugs around pretty soon, I guess,” said Jack. “But they’ll have to wait for high tide, won’t they?”
“Aye, along toward two o’clock, I cal’ate. They’ll lighten her first, though. Maybe if the sea goes down they can save the cargo. I don’t know though.”
“There’s one ship right under her now,” said Bee. “We saw her the other day.”