‘She may be sinking,’ cried Miss Temple.
‘Dry as a bone, madam, I assure you,’ said the officer. ‘I looked into her hold, and there’s scarce more water than would serve to drown a rat.’
‘I see her name in long white letters under her counter,’ I exclaimed. ‘Can you read it, Colledge?’
‘The Aspirante,’ said the lieutenant.
We now fell silent, with our eyes upon the hull, whilst the officer manœuvred with the yoke-lines to run the cutter handsomely alongside. A single chime from a bell came thrilling with a soft silver note through the hushed air. Miss Temple started, and the officer grinned into Colledge’s face, but nothing was said. She was a very clean wreck. Her foremast stood stoutly supported by the shrouds; but the braces of the foreyard were slack, and the swing of the spar, upon which the canvas lay rolled in awkward heaps, roughly secured by lines, as though the work of hands wild with hurry, somehow imparted a strange, forlorn, most melancholy character to the nakedness of that solitary mast. She showed no guns; her decks appeared to have been swept; the rise of her in the water proved that her people must have jettisoned a deal of whatever they were able to come at; her wheel was gone, and her rudder slowly swayed to every heave. There were a few ropes’ ends over her side, the hacked remains of standing-rigging; but the water brimmed clear of wreckage to her channels.
‘Oars!’ cried the lieutenant. The bowman sprang erect; and in a few moments we were floating alongside, soaring and falling against the black run of her, with the deck gaping through the length of smashed bulwark to the level of our heads when we stood up, each time she came lazily rolling over to us. The clear chime of the bell rang out again.
‘What is it?’ cried Miss Temple.
‘The ship’s bell,’ said the lieutenant; ‘it has got jammed as it hangs, and the tongue strikes the side when the heave is a little sharper than usual.’
He followed this on with certain directions to the men. Two of them, watching their chance, sprang on to the slope of the deck, and then went hoisting up away from us as the hull swayed wearily to starboard. ‘Stand by now!’ bawled the lieutenant. ‘Miss Temple, let me assist you on to this thwart.’ She leapt upon it with something of defiance in her manner, and the officer, grasping her elbow, supported her. I thought Colledge looked a little uneasy and pale. We waited; but an opportunity was some time in coming.
‘Mr. Colledge,’ said the lieutenant, ‘be kind enough to take my place and support the lady.’ He jumped lightly into the main-chains, and was on deck in a jiffy. ‘Haul her in close, men. Now, Miss Temple. Catch hold of my hand and of this sailor’s when I say so.’