We rowed rapidly toward the bark and made fast to the hoisting tackle. We had a sling let down for the second mate, who was still unconscious. Before we got him on the deck and got aboard ourselves, Captain Rogers had all hands remaining aboard at work to stop the dreadful leak.
Had all six of the boats been out at this time I fully believe the Scarboro would have gone to the bottom. Or, if there had been any sea to speak of, she would have gone down inside of two hours.
But being right on the job, as you might say, Captain Hi lost few seconds in the work of seeking to save the bark—and, incidentally, all hands. He did not even take the time to see how badly his nephew was hurt just then. As our crew came over the rail he set them to work, too.
“Take poor Ben below and let cookee do what he can for him,” he bawled to me. “I want you to deck here, Webb.”
There was a light breeze, and he had some canvas put on her and got the old bark hove over so that the hole the whale had smashed (it was right at the water-line) was where it could be got at. Of course, it was impossible at first to do anything from inside. There were two men on the pumps and they kept steadily at work, now I tell you.
Mr. Rudd, the carpenter, was not aboard; but Captain Webb did all that could be done at the moment. He put slings under the arms of two men and let them down the canted side of the craft, on either side of the great gap. Then canvas was let down—three thicknesses of heavy, new cloth—and this was laid over the hole after the splinters were cut away, and tacked to the hull, cleats being used to hold it in place all the way around.
Meanwhile the tar-buckets had been heated up, and those fellows gave the canvas and the hull all about it a good coating of tar. We ran several miles on this tack, and until the job was completed. Then, when the men and the tar-buckets were inboard again, the Scarboro was put over on the other tack and we beat back toward the whaleboats.
I can’t say that no water came in; but we could keep the water down by working steadily at the pumps; and before night we had the other boats aboard, and three whales—including the old bull that had done the damage—strung together nearby. We could do nothing toward cutting up and trying-out the whales until the bark was safe.
A sharp blow just then would have fixed us, and that’s a fact. Mr. Rudd and his helpers went below and broke out enough cargo to get at the hole stove in her side. Meanwhile we had to keep the pump brakes moving and the water that flowed from the pipes and out at the hawser-holes was as clear as the sea itself. The old bark had settled a good bit, and we were by no means out of danger.
Here we were, by the Captain’s reckoning, all of four hundred miles southwest of Cape St. Antonio, which is south of the huge mouth of the de la Plata. To set sail for the principal port of Argentina—or any other port—would not suit Captain Hiram Rogers a little bit. Nor am I at all sure that, crippled as she was, the bark could have got to land.