“Jump in,” cried the Skipper, “and len’s a hand to clear away more of this muck.”
The three plied their spades with might and main, and before sundown they had laid bare some eight feet of ship’s deck, with about five feet breadth of bulwark, measuring four feet high from the plank. Mrs. Carey and the niece came to the edge of the pit to look. The three diggers, covered with sweat and hot as fire, climbed out, threw down their spades, and the family stood gazing.
“Whatever is it?” cried Mrs. Carey.
“A foundered ship,” answered her husband.
“A whole ship, uncle?” exclaimed the niece.
“A three-hundred-ton ship,” answered the Skipper. “D’ye want to know if she’s all here? I can’t tell you that; but if there ain’t solidness enough for a Ryle Jarge running fore and aft in this unearthed piece, I’m no sailor man.”
“What sort of ship will she be?” said the half-witted Jack.
“Something two hundred year old, if the whole job hain’t some antiquarian roose like to the burying of Roman baths for the digging of ’em up again as an advertisement for the place. Who was a-reigning two hundred year ago?”
Here every eye was directed at the sailor son, who, after rubbing his nose and looking hard at the horizon, answered, “Crummell.”
“Then it’s a ship of Crummell’s time,” cried the Captain, to whom the name of Crummell did not seem familiar, “and if so be she’s all here and intact, bloomed if she won’t be a fortune to us as a show.”