“Then you think we shall have to remain some time on the island?” said Desmond.
“Of course; it may be for months or years, or we may get off in a few days or weeks. Had we a good carpenter among us, we might have built a vessel from the wreck, should she hold together long enough for us to bring a good portion of her planking and timber ashore; but I am very certain that none of us are capable of that, although we have a stock of carpenter’s tools.”
“There is nothing like trying,” said Desmond. “I have seen ships being built; and if we can obtain timber, we might manage in time to put one together large enough to carry us at once to Guam or to the Sandwich Islands.”
“We will hear what the doctor says. What do you think about it, Bird?”
“Well, sir, I have helped to rig many a craft, but cannot say that I ever worked as a shipwright, though I am ready to try my hand at that or anything else, and ‘where there’s a will there’s a way.’”
“What do you say, Pat?” asked Tom.
“As to that, Mr Rogers, when a man has been a Prime Minister, he ought to think himself fit for anything; and sooner than live on a dissolute island all me life, I’d undertake to build a ninety-gun ship, if I had the materials.”
The answers of the two seamen made Tom think that Desmond’s proposal was, at all events, worth consideration.
“Well, if we find we can get timber enough from the wreck, I don’t see why we should not make the attempt,” he said, after turning over the matter in his mind.
“I’ll undertake that we can build a vessel of ten or fifteen tons, which will carry us to the Sandwich Islands,” observed Desmond, confidently. “I have got the idea in my head, though I cannot promise that she will be much of a clipper, but she shall keep afloat, beat to windward, and stand a pretty heavy sea.”