‘No, sir,’ roared Cutbill.
‘I’ll send one. Make ready to come along.’
Lady Monson was the first of us to press forward to the forecastle. The main-deck was ankle deep, but we splashed through it like a pack of racing children and gained the fore-end of the galleon without misadventure. I was mad with impatience, and all being ready with the whip and chair I plumped Laura most unceremoniously into the seat, caught hold of the line over her head, and down we were lowered. Up then soared the empty chair and out swung her ladyship, who plunged into my arms and came very near to throwing me in her eagerness to leap out before the rocks were within reach of her feet.
‘Now,’ said I, ‘the men can manage for themselves,’ and with that I seized hold of Lady Monson’s hand, grasped Laura by the arm, and away we trudged to the beach off which the barque was lying. I was still so newly awakened from a very stupor of slumber that I moved and thought as though in a dream. Yet my wits were sufficiently collected to enable me to keep a bright look-out for holes. Again and again I secretly heaped curses upon the hindrance of this porous surface, for it forced us into deviations which seemed to make a league of a distance that would have been but a few minutes’ walk on reasonable soil. The energy of our strides forbade speech; we could only breathe, and what little mind this sudden chance of deliverance had left us we had to exclusively devote to the pitfalls.
They had lowered a boat aboard the barque by the time that we arrived at the water’s edge, breathless, and the three of us staring with a feverish greediness, a thirsty, frantic desire, I may say, which ocean peril, of all earthly dangers, paints with most perfection upon the eye. She was a good-sized boat of a whaling pattern, sharp at both ends, pulled by three men who peered continuously over their shoulders as they rowed, and steered by a small man in a blue jacket and a broad-brimmed straw hat. By the time she was close in the others had joined us. I had heard much heated talk amongst them as they came down from the galleon, springing over the holes and wells, and Finn at once said to me:
‘What d’ee think, your honour? here’s Head and Dowling gone mad! They say there’s bullion to be met with in that hulk up there, and they mean to stop with her till they’ve got it.’
‘Nonsense!’ I exclaimed.
‘By the ’Tarnal, then, Mr. Monson,’ cried Dowling, ‘there’s no leaving with me yet. Here’s a chance that ain’t going to happen more’n once to a sailor-man.’
‘Ashore there!’ came from the little chap at the tiller of the boat; ‘what sort of beach have you got for grounding?’