“Peter, do you go below and look out for some spars to serve as jury-masts,” he said; “I’ll meantime keep on. We shall soon get the water under; it’s only a wonder more hasn’t come in.”
Jim and I never thought who was captain; if I told him to do a thing he did it, or if he gave an order I did not stop to consider whether or not he had the right to command. We worked together as if we had but one will.
It was “a long pull, a strong pull, and a pull both together.”
There were plenty of spars below, and I soon selected some which I thought would serve for the masts and yards we required. I had to call Jim to help me get them up on deck.
“There’ll be no use for these till we can find some canvas to spread on them,” I observed.
“Nor till we get a breeze to fill the sails,” said Jim. “However, we’ll get them set while the calm lasts, and no doubt you’ll find as many as we can carry in the sail-room.”
This was right aft, down a small hatchway. While Jim went again to his pump, I hunted about and hauled out two topgallantsails and royals, a fore-staysail, a second jib, and a main-trysail. If we could set all these we should do well, supposing we got a fair breeze. It would be no easy job, however, I knew, to get up the masts. We had one advantage. The proper masts had been carried away some six or seven feet from the deck, so that we might lash the spars to them. Before setting to work I again went below to hunt for rope. I got more than I expected from different parts of the vessel, and we had also saved some of the rigging, which had been entangled in the bulwarks.
“We shall want every scrap of rope we can find!” cried Jim, panting and still pumping away.
“I’ll take a spell with you,” I said. “Then we’ll turn to and rig the ship.”
I pumped till I could pump no longer, and then, after a short rest, we commenced in earnest. We first lashed a short spar, with a tackle secured to its head, to the stump of the foremast, and then, having fitted two shrouds on a side, with a forestay and backstays, and blocks for the halliards, to the spar we had chosen for a foremast, we swayed it up my means of the short spar and tackle. We could not possibly in any other way have accomplished our object. We next lashed the spar to the stump of the mast. No time was lost in setting up the standing rigging. Our foremast being thus fixed, we surveyed it with infinite satisfaction, and then turned to and fitted the brig with a mainmast in the same fashion. This we made somewhat stronger, as we intended it to carry a mainsail should we have to haul on a wind. Our work, as may be supposed, was not especially neat—indeed, we had to knot most of the shrouds, as it was necessary to keep all the longer lengths of rope for halliards, and we had none to spare.