Before even they made a search for food, with considerable difficulty they got up from below the bodies of their late shipmates, and, with a sigh for their fate, launched them overboard. Already they were no longer to be distinguished by their features.
While getting up the dead bodies, a prize had been discovered. It was a small keg of water; it seemed to give, new life to all the party. This encouraged them to hunt for other things. Some more onions and some shaddocks were discovered, and in a tureen with the top on, a piece of boiled beef. They had now no fear of dying of starvation or thirst for some time, at all events.
True Blue’s chief anxiety was about Paul, who suffered far more than the rest, on account of his wound; still nothing would induce him not to exert himself as far as his strength would possibly allow. The next day after these occurrences, the sea went down so much that Paul determined to get some sail on the vessel.
“How is it to be done, though?” asked Tom. “We’ve no spars, sails, or rigging.”
“Hunt about, and let us see if we cannot find what will do,” was Paul’s answer.
True Blue dived below, and soon discovered some rope, a large coil of strong spun yarn, a fore-royal, and the bonnet of the jib, a palm, sail needles and twine, and many other useful articles; and beside these, one of the ship’s compasses, True Blue’s quadrant, given him by Sir Henry; and also the larger part of a long sweep, and two small spars. Curiously enough, also, a page of an old navigation book, with the sun’s declination for that very year.
The first thing to be done was to get sail on the craft. Paul thoroughly understood sail-making, and Tom was a good hand at it. A mast was formed out of the sweep and one of the spars, which was secured to the stump of the foremast. The canvas they had found was cut into a gaff-sail, while the other spar served as the gaff. It was but a small sail, little larger than that of a frigate’s launch; yet, with the wind free, it served to give steerage way to the schooner, and to send her along at the rate of three knots an hour.
All on board had reason to be thankful when once more they found their vessel, which had so long seemed on the point of foundering, almost free from water, and gliding smoothly over the sea. Paul determined to endeavour to reach Jamaica without touching at any other place.
All night they ran on. Sometimes, however, the wind fell so much that they only made a knot an hour; but still, as True Blue remarked, that was something if it was in the right direction.
The want of food was a serious affair, and they resolved the next day to have a grand hunt to try and discover some. Both forward and aft there was a great variety of casks, and bales, and packages, apparently taken out of different vessels which had been captured. As soon as the sun rose, the search was commenced. Another keg of water, found in the forepeak, first rewarded their labours. Some pine apples and other West India fruits were discovered; but a sack of potatoes or a cask of biscuits would have been more acceptable.