“And if Adoniram Tugg makes port with her he’ll turn a pretty penny. Salvage and all,” ruminated Job.
“What do you mean?” I gasped, suddenly awakened to the fact that I was listening to a mighty queer story.
“Why, that’s what Tugg was tugging,” and Job smote his knee and laughed at his own joke.
“He was tugging what?”
“Why, I told you he had a ship in tow. She was a sight, she was! Her masts were just stumps; there wasn’t ten feet of her rail that hadn’t carried away, and she was battered and bruised and looked like she’d sink under the surface every time a wave struck her.
“But that cute Yankee had broached oil barrels on her deck, and she was just wallowin’ along in a pond of ile—a reg’lar slick. The waves couldn’t break over her,” declared Job, still laughing. “I reckon he’d patched up her hull in some way, and it looked to me as though he’d tow her into San Pedro, at least.”
“But, man alive!” I cried. “What was she? What was the Sea Spell towing?”
“Why, that Firebrand,” he said. “And he’ll make a mint of money out of her, as sure as you’re a foot high.”
Chapter XI
In Which I See That There Is Tragedy in This Ocean Race