There was a sudden jar, followed by a grinding, grating sound from below.
"Deedn't I tole yo' so," sang the fellow in an even tone, heaving the lead again as though nothing had happened. A sounding slap from the big mate's hand finished proceedings in the rigging, and a volley of oaths from Sanders, coupled with orders to get a kedge anchor out to windward, put new life in the scene upon the sloop's deck.
Macreary, still smarting from the big black mate's blow upon his stern-sheets, fell to with the rest, and by dint of much heaving upon a new hawser bent to an anchor carried well to windward, the Sea-Horse was finally hove off the bank. They were materially helped in this by the gentle heave of the swell, which lifted the wrecking sloop easily and dropped her with a crash at each sea.
When she floated there were several very discontented men aboard who looked as though they would make it squally weather for the pilot before they reached the wreck on the Bank.
The wreck of the Ramidor, a small Brazilian bark bound for Rio, lay upon the edge of the Bahama Bank in about a fathom of water. She had been driven there in a heavy gale from the eastward and had gone in upon the shoal about a quarter of a mile, lying upon her bilge where the sea in calm weather just broke clear of her, the wash of foam striking against her high black sides and spurting skywards. In a heavy sea, the break was far to windward of her, and in consequence she was in no immediate danger of going to pieces with the smash. She had been sighted by several wreckers, and the Sea-Horse and Buccaneer were on their way to her, each hurrying with all speed to claim the salvage. The Buccaneer was at work on the Caicos Bank, and the Sea-Horse at Cape Florida when the news reached them. The former manned by English negroes and navigated by a long, lean Yankee skipper, had stood to the eastward and northward, coming in sight of the wreck about the time the Sea-Horse, picking her way across the shoals, raised the slanting topmasts of the Ramidor beyond a dry coral bank which forced her to make a long détour to the southward. She had taken on the pilot to save time and cut across the shoal places as close as possible, and he had run them ashore most ignominiously when within ten miles of their destination.
Macreary finished coiling down the hawser after the kedge was hoisted aboard, and then he joined the rest who sat upon the hatch. He was much abashed at heart, but tried not to show it, swaggering with a careless air among the men who glared at him.
"Blamed fine quartermaster you make," snarled one; "must have been on one o' them ten-foot sand barges wot takes offal to sea an' dumps it. I once knowed a fellar like you wot was quartermaster o' one."
"Capting, too, hey?" growled a Swede. "Crew were a yaller dawg?"
"Where did yo' learn pilotin'?" asked a Conch, grinning and spitting as close to the pilot's toes as he could without hitting them.