The masts were still alongside hanging on by the rigging, their butt ends every now and then striking against her with so terrific a force that I feared they must before long drive a hole through the planking. As far as I could make out through the thick gloom, some spars which had apparently fallen before the masts gave way lay about the deck, kept from being washed away by the rigging attached to them having become entangled in the stanchions and the remaining portions of the shattered bulwarks.
Not one of our shipmates could we see. Again we shouted, in the faint hope that some of them might be lying concealed forward. No one answered.
“Maybe that they have gone down into the fore-peak,” said Jim; “I’ll go and knock on the hatch. They can’t hear our shouts from where we are.”
I tried to persuade Jim not to make the attempt till daylight, for a sea might break on board and wash him away.
“But do you see, Peter, we must try and get help to cut away the lower rigging, which keeps the masts battering against the sides?” he answered.
“Then I’ll go with you,” I said. “We’ll share the same fate, whatever that may be.”
“No, no, Peter! You stay by the companion-hatch; see, there are plenty of spars for me to catch hold of, and I’ll take good care not to get washed away,” answered Jim, beginning his journey forward.
Notwithstanding what he said, I was following him when I fancied that I heard a faint groan. I stopped to listen. It might be only the sound produced by the rubbing of two spars together or the working of the timbers. Again I heard the groan. I was now sure that it was uttered by one of our shipmates. It came from a part of the deck covered by a mass of broken spars and sails and rigging. Though I could not see as far, I knew that Jim had reached the fore-hatchway by hearing him shouting and knocking with the back of the axe.
“Are any of them there?” I cried out.
“No! Not one, I’m afeared,” he answered.