Notwithstanding the youthful efforts to be optimistic, the Porto Bello’s position was bad. She lay with her stern in deeper, swift water. Sharks and the rapid flow of the tide made it impossible to get under her stern to examine the propeller. They had spare parts, and would be able to repair the stripped gearing, or, at least, to render the clutch and shifts possible to use by substituting new gears. But the damage to the propeller must be estimated.
“My idea,” said Tom, with proper diffidence, when the entire party discussed the situation while they ate the dinner Bill prepared, “my idea would be to get a rope over to those snags of rock, put pulleys fore and aft on the top of the cabin, reave a rope through them, run it to the capstan, forward, then carry it out to the snags, fasten it, and then, steadily take up on it with the winch. The pull would work on the whole boat that way, and if we moved most of our stuff aft and lightened the bow, she might drag off.”
“How would we get a line to those snags—across that deep water?” objected Henry. “I, for one, won’t risk those sharks! They say they don’t trouble the Indians, or Negroes, but white men are different.”
“Probably Indians will come out in canoes,” Tom said hopefully.
This prediction proved true, but not until the next morning; then a canoe containing two stolid Mosquito Indians came out. They wore ragged trousers and shirts worn outside the trousers, hanging down, and their dark faces were almost as expressionless as those of the North American Indians.
They paddled down the water near the stern, and coming into a small bight of water where the current was less violent, they sat still for almost an hour, staring fixedly and without answering a number of hails sent them by various ones.
Finally, however, they did respond. They spoke little, but seemed to comprehend a little English and a trifle more of Spanish. Henry Morgan, who was morose and angry about something, bellowed orders at them. Tom, who knew what made Henry sour, since Tom had already dropped several fat bottles into a swift eddy astern, remonstrated at his angry commands.
“They don’t like to be yelled at,” Tom said.
“You be still!” snapped Henry. “I guess I know how to handle these Indians. You’ve got to bellow and roar at them to get them started. They’re lazy and they’re rough and they’d never move if you don’t get them waked up.”
“They may be all that,” agreed Tom, “but they’re human, too!”