"I'm afraid, Paul, I'm a poor sailor," she said as he came to her side. "I can't tell anything from this."
Paul took the rod from her and dried it.
"You sounded as the ship rolled. The way to do is to wait until she comes on an even keel. Like this. Now."
"That is just the way I did."
A moment later he hauled the rod out and gasped in dread. It showed four and one-half feet of water in the Daphne's hold!
There surged through him a second later the rage with which he had met and fought the storm. Here was a new and unexpected gage of battle. It swept from him the last vestige of pain and fatigue. Instantly the suggestion of flame, characteristic of the man in action, marked his every movement.
"She's an iron vessel with a coal cargo," he hurriedly told Emily. "If the storm has strained her——" A mist came into his eyes and he glanced overside. "That cursed sea isn't going to get you! It isn't! Come on!"
Emily exhibited but a momentary apprehension of danger. The joy of working with Paul in a freely admitted equality swept it away. The only recognition of her femininity was his insistence upon her wearing a pair of gloves which he had brought from McGavock's room.
Together they got the pumps rigged to the donkey engine and started them sucking two black streams out of the hold.
"Two hours will tell us whether the enemy's in force or not—maybe sooner," Paul said as he left Emily to go about the ship with a lantern to discover if possible if the Daphne had sprung a leak in her topsides. When he came to the fore hatch his hopes lifted at the thought that the sea might have entered here through the uncalked and untarpaulined covers. It was a dreary tangle of hamper which met his gaze in this part of the vessel. For an instant he was puzzled to observe that everything he touched left a black, oily smear. He crawled up under the forecastle head and there found what he considered an explanation of the Daphne's survival. Two barrels of engine oil were lashed to the heel of the bowsprit. One of these had been sprung by the storm and was still weeping its contents upon the deck. It was this oil running out of the hawse pipes and the scuppers which had calmed the bark's tempestuous way.