“From what I hear, when the ship is paid off, he will only be looked on as so much old iron, or laid up in the gun-wharf never to bark again, so we shall do him more honour by lowering him into an ocean grave.”
The order was given, and, as the brig rolled, Long Tom sent over the side into the foaming waters. The brig evidently floated more buoyantly on being relieved of his weight.
At length the gale broke, and sail being made, the Supplejack once more stood on her course.
Evening was coming on; dark, leaden seas, still foam-topped, were rising up sullenly around her as she made her way amidst them, now on the summit of one, now sinking into the valley below, when the lookout shouted—
“The hull of a ship, either dismasted or on her beam-ends away on the lee-bow, sir.”
Jack went aloft with his telescope.
“She is a dismasted vessel, there is little doubt about that,” he observed to Bevan, as he returned on deck. “Keep the brig away for her.”
Evening was approaching, but Jack hoped to be up with the stranger before dark. As the brig drew near her, she was seen to be a large ship, her three masts gone, while no attempt apparently had been made to rig jury-masts. So deep was she, that as she rolled in the heavy seas, the water came rushing over her decks, and gushing out through the scuppers on the opposite side.
Jack felt thankful that he had seen her, as, in all probability, her fate during the night would have been sealed. The brig was steered to pass just under her stern, Jack intending to heave-to to leeward. Just as she got up to her, Tom exclaimed—
“I see her name—it is the Carib, the very ship in which Mr Bradshaw intended to come to England.”