“Get the sweeps and the boat-hook,” he cried to Tom and Bob, “and fetch up that water-cask and the big wooden fish-box.”
The boys waited not a moment to inquire the reason, though Henry Burns’s design was an enigma to them. They scrambled forward and then below, handed the sweeps aft, and tumbled the box and cask out on deck.
“Pass some lashings around the cask and the box,” commanded Henry Burns.
The boys lost no time in obeying orders, while Henry Burns, himself, quickly took a hitch around either end of one of the sweeps, with one of the short pieces of rope. He then tied the spare anchor-line at the centre of this rope, so that, if the sweep were cast overboard, it would be dragged through the water horizontally, offering its full resistance.
To this sweep he then rapidly hitched the other one, and then the boat-hook; and, finally, he hitched to this the big box and the cask, by their lashings.
“What in the world are you going to do with that stuff, Henry?” inquired Bob.
But Harvey had perceived the other’s purpose.
“Good for you, Henry!” he exclaimed. “Where did you ever hear about a sea-anchor?”
“Read about it in a book, once,” responded Henry Burns, coolly. “What do you say—shall we try it? We lose all the stuff if it don’t work. We’ll have to cut it loose.”
“You bet we’ll try it,” said Harvey, hurriedly. “We can’t be in much worse shape than we’re in. Get it up aft now, fellows; and Tom, you and Bob be ready to jump for the halyards and lower the sail, when it goes overboard. Then we’ll tie in that fourth reef in a jiffy.”