"We would have to try and see. Besides, we would have to do little else than help the current we are in. The Atlantic eddy sweeps through the Caribbean close to the South American coast. If we could control our direction slightly, we would perhaps make La Guayra or the Port of Spain."
"With a seven or eight mile current that would take us months—years.... What is the distance to La Guayra?" this from Smith.
"Something around fifteen hundred miles. But that isn't the point. It isn't how long it takes us, it's can we do it. Had you thought of the salvage end of this thing?"
"Salvage, no. We'll get salvage on the schooner—a bagatelle."
Madden shook his head, "No, I believe we ought to get salvage on the whole dock."
"Salvage on the dock!" Caradoc opened his eyes. "We'd be jolly well near millionaires. No, that's impossible. A crew can't salve their own vessel."
"Yes, but we are not the crew of the dock," insisted Madden, "at least not the navigating crew. The men of the Vulcan were that. We are nothing but painters——"
"Oh, that's a quibble—nothing but a quibble!" objected Caradoc.
"Well, anyway, I think there is a rule that if a crew rescue their own craft under circumstances of extreme peril, they come in as salvors. I'll look it up in Malone's books when we get back."
At that moment their ears caught a cheering from the dock, which came to them as a small sound almost lost over the immense flat sea. Greer paused in his work to wave a hand, which was extremely sociable for him. The men bunched on the forward pontoon, waved and shouted at the little boat. As the noise grew louder, questions shaped themselves in the uproar.