Jim needed no second asking. Seizing the brakes, we began, and pumped away with all our might, making the water rush across the deck in a full stream. Before long one man got up and joined, then another, and another. When we got tired and cried, “Spell ho!” the rest took our places.
“I see you want to save your lives, lads,” cried the mate, who occasionally took a spell himself. “But you must keep at it, or it will be of no use.”
All that day we stood on, the crew pumping without intermission.
“If the wind moderates we’ll set more sail,” said the mate; “but the brig has as much on her as she can bear. We must be soon looking out for land, though. You, Peter, have a sharp pair of eyes—go aloft, and try if you can see it.”
Though the vessel was heeling over terribly at the time, I was about to obey, when Jim said, “No, you stay on deck; let me go, Peter.”
To this I would not agree.
“Then I’ll go with you,” said Jim.
So we both crawled up the weather-rigging together. Jim said he thought that he saw land on the starboard bow, but I did not get a glimpse of it, and felt sure that he was mistaken; at all events there was no land visible ahead. We remained aloft till darkness came on, and there was no use remaining longer.
We made our reports to the mate. He said that Jim was right, and that we had probably passed the South Foreland.
This was, however, I suspected, only to encourage the men to keep at the pumps. All night long, spell and spell, we laboured away. When the morning broke no land was in sight. By this time we were all pretty well knocked up, and most of the men declared that they could pump no longer.