He bustled away and brought back old Tom Anderly. I couldn’t have wished for anybody else. In a quarter of an hour we had agreed on everything. Tom and Ben were to stick around Buenos Ayres until they heard from Captain Rogers, or the Scarboro put in for them. Of course, I would be free once I got to land, unless I wanted to stick the voyage out and claim my lay at the end. However, I was to have one hundred dollars in gold from the captain, and the sloop, whichever way I decided.
Captain Rogers had set Ben’s arm and dressed his other wounds. Ben was conscious, but in great pain from the broken ribs. He knew what we were going to attempt, and he was willing to trust himself to old Tom and me. And the next morning, as soon as it was light, the Wavecrest was slung over the side, her mast stepped, and the riggers got to work on her. By noon she was provisioned and everything was ready for our cruise.
Ben Gibson was let down into the cockpit of the Wavecrest on a mattress and was got comfortably into the cabin without any trouble. There was a steady breeze, but the sea was calm. The crew bade us godspeed and the skipper wrung my hand hard; but only said:
“Do the best you can for him, Webb. I’m trustin’ to you and Tom to pull the lad through.”
We got the canvas up and sheered off from the Scarboro’s side. We could hear the muffled hammering of the carpenter and his mates inside her wounded hull. They were fighting to keep the old hooker above the seas. As we drifted away from the whaling bark I was not at all sure that we should ever see her above the seas again.
Our canvas filled and the sloop got a bone in her teeth and walked away with it just as prettily as ever she had sailed in Bolderhead Harbor.
“She’s a beauty boat, lad,” growled old Tom Anderly. “And she’s taking us out o’ range o’ them carcasses—Whew! they sartainly do begin to stink. I don’t begredge the boys their job of cutting them whales up when they git at it.”
We left the gulls and the sharks behind, with the bark and the rotting whales, and soon they were all far away—mere specks upon the horizon.