Kitabı oku: «The Rival Campers: or, The Adventures of Henry Burns», sayfa 19
The Nancy Jane, like a horse that is being driven into danger that it somehow apprehends, seemed almost intelligent in its reluctance to enter the stretch of reef-strewn water. It bumped and scraped its way from one rock to another, balked at this ledge and that, and, finally, after an extra amount of pushing and pulling by the three men, jammed itself fast on a reef studded with barnacles and snail-shells, and refused to budge one way or another. In vain they tried to bulldoze and cajole, to push and to pull, to plead with and to denounce the obstinate Nancy Jane. Stolid and deaf alike to entreaty and expostulation, the boat squatted down upon the reef like an ugly fat duck, comfortably disposed for the night and refusing to be disturbed.
“I told you so!” roared the captain, now aroused to his rights as skipper, and finding himself thus exasperatingly vindicated as to the impassability of the channel. “We’re hung up fast for the night, for the next twelve hours, till next flood. Then, if Lem Cobb is living in his fishing-shack on Spring Island, and will lend us a hand and a few pieces of joist to pry with, mebbe we’ll get off, and mebbe we won’t.”
The colonel and the squire boiled inwardly; but as it was apparent they had only themselves to blame, they felt it useless to engage in discussion with the indignant captain. So they wisely remained silent, and left him to consume his wrath alone.
“Well,” he said, finally, “I for one am curious to see just where those young rascals are; and if you’re of the same mind you can satisfy your curiosity by coming ashore with me.” And the captain waded off to the rocks of Spring Island and clambered up the bank, closely followed by the colonel and the squire.
“There they go, slipping along as slick as eels,” exclaimed the captain, as he and his panting companions achieved the ascent of the highest bit of rock on Spring Island and looked down the bay. “They’re off down among the islands,” he continued, “and here we stand like natural-born idiots and bite our fingers. If ever I get into a mess like this again, I’ll resign my office of constable and hire out to Noddy Perkins for a clam-digger.” But the colonel and the squire, too angry and chagrined for words, stayed not to listen to the captain’s denunciation.
They turned and walked rapidly in the direction of the fishing-shack, the only shelter the island afforded; while the captain, standing out in relief upon the rock, like some disappointed Napoleon, was the last solitary object that the boys saw as, looking astern from the Spray, the little island faded from their view into the twilight.
CHAPTER XX.
AMONG THE ISLANDS
The yacht Spray, with six jubilant boys aboard, sailed slowly away from Heron and Spring Islands, shaping its course for a group of outer islands of some considerable size, about two miles away. It was nearly seven o’clock, but the southerly breeze had not wholly died with the going down of the sun, and the tide, which had just begun to ebb, was favourable.
“I think we can get across to-night,” said George Warren. “This wind is going to hold for some hours yet and maybe all night; and we know our way into Cold Harbour at any hour of the twenty-four. I don’t think Captain Sam will start to run out of the Little Reach at all to-night, for when the tide drops there are some bad ledges all along that thoroughfare, and, besides, he won’t want to run the risk of drifting out here in the bay, in case the wind should drop. We shall have twelve hours start of him, anyway, and once among the islands we can keep out of sight for days.”
“I’d have given something to see the colonel and the squire when they found we had slipped away from them at the very moment they thought they had us,” said young Joe. “Didn’t they look funny, standing up there on the rock, watching us sail away?”
“Captain Sam has my sympathy,” said Henry Burns, dryly, and the very thought of the disappointed trio arguing it out together sent the boys into fits of laughter. They fairly rolled over on the seats and hugged one another.
“It’s the richest joke of the season,” said young Joe.
And so, for the time being, in their elation, the consciousness that they were runaways, fleeing from possible arrest, was forgotten. The stars came out, and a lighthouse far and near gave them their course. The water gleamed with phosphorescence, and the yacht Spray left a wake of gleaming silver and gold and flashing jewels. By and by the moon came up out of the sea and threw a radiant path across the waters, and the islands ahead stood out in huge black shadow.
It was glorious sailing, with the soft summer night air blowing in their faces; and they sang as they sailed, and yo-hoed all the sea choruses they knew, and felt so free and irresponsible that the yacht Spray, as though it absorbed some of their spirit, rolled along in a merry, swinging fashion, rocking gently from billow to billow, dipping and tossing in time to the music.
The still shores of Eagle Island rang with their songs as they rounded to in Cold Harbour somewhere near midnight, and came to anchor close to shore in the deep water, within the shadow of the hemlocks that rose up, tall and black, almost from the water’s edge, where the tide swashed gently against the rocks. High up in the thick branches of the great trees some fish-hawks, startled by the unwonted noise, rose up from their nests and uttered shrill, piercing screams of fright. And this was their only welcome, for on all the island there was no other sign of life.
“It’s fairly certain they won’t pursue us to-night,” said George. “But it won’t do to be caught napping. We’ve got to set watch regularly every night now, and we might as well begin to-night. Somebody’s got to walk out on the point of rocks yonder and look out for sails. Two will be enough till morning. We will split the time from now till six into two three-hour watches.”
“I’ll begin it,” said Bob.
“My next,” said Tom, not to be outdone by his chum.
Bob rowed ashore in the little tender, and set off at once for a point of rocks some half-mile distant, which commanded a view of the bay. The others were sound asleep by the time he was half-way there.
When Tom awoke, about seven hours later, it was broad daylight and the sun was streaming into the hatchway. He scrambled out in a hurry as Bob’s voice hailed him from the deck.
“Hulloa! Hulloa!” came the voice. “Are you fellows going to sleep all day?”
“Why didn’t you come back and rouse me to take my turn?” asked Tom, reproachfully.
“Well, I wasn’t sleepy,” answered Bob, “and it grew light soon, and I got to watching a mink fishing for his family, and carrying cunners to them along the rocks, and I thought I’d let you sleep. It’s tough to wake up, you know, when one has just dropped off. Come on, we’ll take a swim now. The water is fine.”
Tom bared a muscular young form, and he and Bob dived off the rail of the Spray, making such a splashing and commotion in the water and bellowing so like young sea-lions, that the others gave up trying to turn over for another nap, and came sprawling out of the cabin, diving overboard, one after another, to join them. Then they had a race ashore, which was won by Tom, with Bob and Henry Burns a close second; after which they lay on the beach sunning themselves, and then swam back to the yacht for breakfast.
“There’s not a sail in sight, and the whole bay is as smooth as glass,” Bob had announced on his arrival; and, as not a breath of wind was yet stirring, there was no need of setting watch for the present. So they all sat down to hot coffee and griddle-cakes, and ate like wolves.
After breakfast they went ashore to explore the island, roaming about like young savages, leaving their clothing piled in a heap in the tender. Every now and then, as the humour seized them, they raced down to the shore, wherever they were, ran along on the fine white beaches, and cooled themselves in the clear, still water.
They had it all to themselves, for nobody lived on this small island, the fishermen on the mainland or neighbouring larger islands coming over in the late summer only, to cut the grass and make the hay.
Then they went back to the tender and dressed, and Henry Burns, daunted at nothing, tried to climb one of the giant hemlocks to a fish-hawk’s nest, but gave it up when the birds screamed in his ears and beat at him with their powerful wings.
They had dug some clams at the low tide in the forenoon and put them away, covered with wet seaweed. Now, shortly after their noon luncheon, as the tide flooded, they got out the lines from a locker in the Spray and tried the fishing in Cold Harbour. There were plenty of small harbour fish, flounders out in the middle where the water was muddy, and cunners and small rock-cod in among the ledges. They soon caught a basket of these, cleaned them, and put them away, covered with seaweed, like the clams.
Then, toward the end of the afternoon, as the bay was still calm, they set out along the shore and gathered driftwood, which they threw in a great pile on a flat, clean ledge. As supper-time came, they set this heap afire and let it burn for an hour or two, until the great flat ledge was at a white heat. Then they made a broom of some branches of hemlock, and swept the ledge clean of ashes, and brought the clams and poured them out on the ledge, covering them all with clean, damp seaweed till there rose clouds of steam, and, after a time, an appetizing odour.
The fish they cooked in much the same way, wrapping them in big green leaves and setting them upon the hot stones to bake.
Then, as evening came on, they built the fire anew close by, for a fire is the cheeriest of companions in a strange place, and sat feasting on steamed clams and fish, with a great pot of coffee filling all the air with a most delicious fragrance. They lolled about the fire and ate, till even slim Henry Burns said he felt like an alderman. They told stories by the firelight, and stretched out at ease till sleep nearly overtook them as they lay there; for the day had been brimful of exertion. By and by, long after the stars were out, and a gentle breeze from the south, coming up softly from among the islands, just rippled the water, they rowed out to the Spray, Tom returning ashore again to begin the night’s watch.
Then, later in the night, came George Warren’s turn to watch, and he stayed it out till morning, for, with all the fun of the day, there was something that would keep turning over and over in his brain, and which took away the sleepy feeling and left in its stead a feeling of unhappiness; a sense of something wrong. His father would have said it was conscience, but George wrestled long and hard through the morning hours to avoid recognizing it as that, for conscience would say, if recognized, that it was all wrong, what they were doing, – and George Warren wanted to think he was having a good time.
These moody thoughts began to dissipate, however, with the coming of the warm golden glow in the east; and when the sun was at length up, and the boys had had their morning swim, and sat about a fire awaiting breakfast, George Warren seemed himself again.
But the breakfast was rudely interrupted by a series of whoops from young Joe, who had taken his brother’s place on guard at the end of the point of rocks, and who now came running down alongshore, crying out that there was a sail that looked like the Nancy Jane coming out from around the islands across the bay, and they all raced back to have a look at it.
“It’s the Nancy Jane, sure enough,” said Henry Burns. “It’s her big mainsail, with the high peak. She’s making slow headway, though, with this breath of wind. However, we shall have to be off at once, if we are going to try to escape.”
It was noticeable that Henry Burns said “if.”
However, as no one felt like proposing to give up, they lost no time in getting aboard the Spray, and had sail on and the anchor up in what Captain Sam would have called a jiffy. Heading out into the open bay that lay between them and the outer islands, they bade good-bye to Cold Harbour and began a long, slow beat to windward, in the light breeze.
“There’s more wind coming, down between the islands,” said Bob. “There’s a line of breeze about two miles to the southward, and we shall catch it a good half-hour before the Nancy Jane.”
“That’s so; it will give us a fine start,” said Arthur.
But, somehow, no one seemed wildly enthusiastic over their prospects. However, as they caught the fresher breeze, and the little Spray stood stiffly up into it and ate away to windward, their spirits rose. Then, as the islands came plainly into view and they drew nearer and nearer to the first, big Saddle Island, with its low range of little hills dropping down in the centre in the shape of a horse’s back, the excitement became intense; for the Nancy Jane had not rounded the point of Eagle Island, and it seemed as though they might be out of sight behind Saddle Island before they could be seen by those aboard the pursuing yacht.
“Go it, old Spray! Good little boat!” cried young Joe, as the yacht glided swiftly up into the shadow of the island. “We’re going to make it, and, once behind old Saddle, who’s to know which way we have gone?”
“Five minutes more of this sailing, and we shall fool Captain Sam once more,” said Bob.
The five minutes were nearly up. They had but another leg to run to round the head of Saddle Island. They stood out till they had one and all declared that they could clear it on the next tack; they were all ready to go about. George Warren stood with one hand on the tiller and the other ready to grasp the main-sheet. Joe and Arthur Warren were waiting impatiently to trim the jib-sheets, and then – and then George Warren took their breaths away.
All at once he jammed the tiller over, threw the Spray clear off the wind, let the main-sheet run, and before they scarcely knew what had happened, instead of standing in to round the head of Saddle Island, the little Spray was running dead before the wind and heading squarely back for the point around which the Nancy Jane must soon come in sight.
It was so quickly done that at first they thought there was some mistake, and Arthur and Joe and Bob rushed to the stern to help bring her around again; but George Warren, with a firm, set look on his face, stood them off.
“Oh, I say, George, you’re not going to give it up now, are you?” cried young Joe, who had been in high spirits not a moment before.
“That’s what,” responded his brother, quietly. “I’ve thought it all out at last, and I’ve come to the conclusion we are doing the cowardly thing to run away. We have got to face the thing, and we may as well do it first as last. Besides, we didn’t set out to run away when we started.”
“That’s a fact,” said Tom. “We have sort of drifted into this running away business without realizing what we were doing. Now the best thing we can do is to go back and have it out with Colonel Witham.”
“It’s not Colonel Witham that I hate to face,” said George. “It’s father and mother. And the part they’ll feel worst about is that we did not stay and talk it over with them.”
“That’s so,” added Arthur. “What a lot of loons we were to come down here.”
“Shall I pull the centreboard up?” asked Henry Burns.
“You bet!” answered George Warren. “And we’ll take a leaf out of your book, Henry, and we won’t worry over what cannot be helped. We’re doing the right thing now, anyway, so there’s that much to feel good about.”
“There’s the Nancy Jane,” said Henry Burns.
Sure enough, Captain Sam’s pride was just turning the point, and Captain Sam, looking at the Spray coming down free and pointing its nose right at him, could hardly believe his eyes.
“It’s them, all right,” he assured the squire and the colonel. “They are coming back; tired of being runaways, I guess. Well, I thought they would get sick of it after a night or two away from home. They ain’t the kind of boys to enjoy running away.”
“Humph!” snorted the colonel.
“They’re a lot of young scamps and scapegraces,” snarled the squire.
Getting aground and spending a night in a bed that the colonel swore was stuffed with pig iron and seaweed had not improved their tempers.
“Well, anyhow,” responded Captain Sam, “they are coming back of their own accord, and that is something in their favour.”
The colonel and the squire only sneered.
Meanwhile the little Spray came running down the wind in merry style, and the end of the next hour found her swinging up into the wind, with sails flapping, while the Nancy Jane ran alongside.
The colonel and the squire were at last avenged.
Full of wrath was the one, and brimming with wrathful satisfaction was the other.
“So we have caught you at last, have we?” exclaimed Squire Brackett.
“We seem to have sort of caught ourselves, squire,” answered George Warren.
“Well, never mind about being smart,” said the colonel, hotly. “You are under arrest for burning my hotel down. Perhaps that will take some of the smartness out of you.”
“Under arrest!” George Warren’s face paled. “It isn’t right,” he added. “We didn’t do it nor have any hand in it.”
“Guess you won’t attempt to deny that you were in the billiard-room, will you?” broke in Squire Brackett. “Because, bein’ as I saw you all in there, it might not do you any good to swear as how you wasn’t.”
“Don’t you dare accuse us of trying – ” But young Joe got no further.
“Be quiet, Joe,” said George Warren, calmly. And then, turning to the colonel, he said:
“We are not going to deny anything, Colonel Witham. That is why we are coming back of our own accord. We have got nothing to conceal, and we are going to tell everything just as it happened.”
“That is just about what we are arresting you for,” said the squire, sneeringly. “We calculate you’ll have to tell everything.”
“Hold on there a minute, squire,” cried Captain Sam. “Let’s not be too hard on these boys. There may be some mistake, as they say. I hold these ’ere warrants, and I don’t see as there is any necessity of serving of ’em just yet. If these boys will give me their word to go along straight as they can sail for Mayville, and agree to appear when wanted before Judge Ellis, why, I guess maybe the warrants will keep till – say, just as we go in the door. Or perhaps Judge Ellis will consent that they come before him of their own accord, without serving these warrants at all, considering as they are only boys.”
It is needless to say that Captain Sam’s legal experience was of the most limited sort.
“Bully for you, Captain Sam!” cried Bob. “You’re a brick, – and you won’t regret it.” And a yell of thanks from the others gave Captain Sam a warm glow under his blue shirt.
The squire and the colonel were loud and furious in their denunciation of such a course.
“It’s against the law,” cried the colonel; and he vowed he would make it hot for Captain Sam when Judge Ellis found his orders were not obeyed. But Captain Sam knew better than they of the warm corner in the judge’s heart, and knew, moreover, that his old friend of years, the judge, would never reprimand him for a breach of duty of this sort. So he shut his lips firmly and let the squire and the colonel boil away as best they might between themselves.
The captain shortened sail on the Nancy Jane, so that the two boats kept along near together, heading back for Southport.
It was a sorry crew aboard the Spray as the little craft silently followed in the wake of the Nancy Jane. They might have been in dreamland as they sailed all that day, for scarcely a word was spoken; and when night dropped down and the boys, all but George Warren, piled into the cabin to sleep, it was scarcely more quiet than by day.
Very late that night, as the Spray and the Nancy Jane ran into Southport harbour and brought up for a few moments alongside the wharf, to let a serious-looking man, and a tearful woman aboard, the boys were still sleeping soundly; and George Warren and his father and mother sat alone together till the sun rose, while the Spray, following the Nancy Jane, ran along up the island and then stood across to Mayville, where Judge Ellis would hold his court that morning.
“I don’t need you to make any denial about the fire,” Mr. Warren had said, when he stepped aboard the Spray and put his hand on his eldest son’s shoulder. “I know you boys would not do such a thing as that; but I fear your recklessness has gotten you into serious trouble, and Colonel Witham seems inclined to press the matter to the extreme. So I want to hear everything from beginning to end.”
And George Warren told him all.
There was another boat coming sluggishly up the bay that night, far astern of the Spray, a handsome big sloop, beautifully modelled and with finely tapered, shining yellow spars. But she carried little sail, was reefed, in fact, though the breeze was very light; and she moved through the water so like a dead thing, or like a creature crippled by a wound, that a sailor would have seen at once that there had been some mishap aboard, some injury to hull or spars that held her back.
The youth at the wheel of this strange, big sloop bore a striking resemblance to Jack Harvey, though the yacht was not the Surprise, but bigger and far more elegant. And the crew – yes, they were surely Harvey’s crew – George and Allan and Tim and Joe, – and they addressed the boy at the wheel as “Jack.”
And the Surprise– where was she?
Four days had passed since, on that morning following the fire, the Surprise had turned the point of the island that marked an entrance to the thoroughfare where, a half-mile to leeward, a big black sloop was coming fast up the wind.
“There he is!” Harvey had cried. “Come, boys, get into shape now; but stay below till I give the word, – all but you, Joe, – and when I yell you pile out and get aboard that sloop the quickest you ever did anything in all your lives. He will fight, and we have got to act quick.”
If the thick-set, ill-visaged man who sat at the wheel of the black sloop felt any concern at the sudden appearance of this new craft, dead ahead and coming down the narrow thoroughfare toward him, his alarm must have abated as on its near approach the apparent number of its occupants became disclosed.
“She looks harmless enough,” he muttered, between his teeth. “Pshaw! There’s only a couple of boys aboard. But it did give me a start for a moment.” And he slapped a hand at his jacket pocket.
“He’s taking long chances, if he did but know it,” said Harvey, as the big sloop came about after a tack close in shore. “That boat cannot more than clear those ledges by an inch, if it does that. It’s a regular stone field where he’s sailing. The channel here winds like a cow-path in a pasture. However, if he can clear there, we can, so we’ll begin to crowd him.”
It was no easy matter now to close in on a boat beating across the thoroughfare and not arouse suspicion. To follow him, tack by tack, and point so as to head him off every time he went about, must inevitably put him on his guard long before the time came to strike, and might even allow him, by clever sailing, to slip by.
With his cap pulled down over his eyes, so that the stranger could not by any chance identify him as the youth he had knocked down in the pasture the night of the fire, and his head bent low, Jack Harvey watched the man’s every move, and calculated every inch of the way.
“Three more tacks will bring him up to us,” he said. “And there’s shoal water to starboard and some ledges just beyond them. He’s got to meet us about in that spot,” and Harvey laid his own course according to his calculation and held to it steadily.
It must have served to allay the man’s suspicions, if he still had any, but now, as he came about on the third tack, he viewed the oncoming Surprise with anger.
“Keep away, there!” he cried, in a fierce, violent tone. “Keep off! Can’t you see you’re going to foul me if you don’t keep off?”
“Ready to jump, now, Joe,” said Harvey, in a low voice. “I’m going to run him down. It’s the only way to be sure, though it may wreck us.
“Fellows,” he called, softly, to the boys below, “all ready, now. You know what you’ve got to do the moment she strikes.”
The man at the wheel had risen to his feet, and he shook one fist threateningly, while his other hand clutched the wheel, throwing his sloop off as far as he could.
“Curse you!” he cried. “You’re running me down. Keep off, I say, or I’ll blow your stupid head off your shoulders.”
The next moment Harvey, with a sudden turn of the tiller, threw the Surprise full tilt at the oncoming sloop. There was a sharp crash of splintering wood, the tearing of head-sails, and a shock that shook the yachts from keel to topmast, as the Surprise rammed the big black sloop just by the foremast stays, snapping her own bowsprit short off and making an ugly hole in her own planking.
Leaping just as the boats crashed, and holding a coil of rope on his arm, Joe Hinman landed on the top of the big sloop’s cabin in the very midst of the confusion. A moment more and he had made a few quick turns about the mast, lashing the two yachts fast together at the moment when Harvey, followed by the rest of his crew, who came swarming out of the cabin, sprang aboard the strange sloop.
“I’ll shoot the first boy that steps a foot on this boat,” cried the man; but the words were scarce out of his mouth before they were upon him. He had been in danger before and knew how to make the most of his chances, and he stood, desperate but cool, as they made their rush.
There was a shot, and Jack Harvey, who was leading, gave a cry of pain, for a bullet just grazed his left shoulder. He stumbled and fell full at the feet of the man as another shot was fired and young Tim thought his right hand was gone.
The next moment Harvey had the man by the legs, while Allan Harding and George Baker and Joe made a rush for him. The man fell heavily, Joe Hinman clinging with both hands to one wrist, so that he could not fire again. They rolled over and over in the cockpit for a moment, the boys and he. Twice the man got to his knees and twice they dragged him down again; till, at length, young Tim, whose hand was not shot away, but only slightly wounded, managed to run in and deal the man a blow with the end of an oar, which stunned him for a moment, so that they got him flat and had bound the loose end of a halyard about him before he came fully to his senses. Then, as they proceeded to complete the job and tie him fast, hand and foot, he recognized Harvey for the first time.
“Hulloa!” he exclaimed. “Why, where have I seen you before? You’re not the chap in the pasture, are you?”
“The same,” said Harvey.
“Well, the game’s up,” said the man, coolly. “’Twas a mistake, and I knew it the moment after I had done it. I was a fool to hit you that night. It’s my temper, that’s what has beat me. It gets away from me sometimes. I dare say if I had gone along about my business you wouldn’t have followed me, eh?”
“Probably not,” answered Harvey. “That is why I am glad you knocked me down,” and then, taking a quick glance over the side of the boat, he cried:
“Joe! Allan! George! Out with the sweeps, lively! We’re going aground.”
Harvey sprang to the wheel, hauling in on the main-sheet as he did so.
But it was too late. There was a gentle shock that shook the sloop from end to end, a dull, grating sound, and the next moment the big sloop rested firmly on a jagged rock of the reach, listing as she hung, and wrenching the bilge so that she made water rapidly.
“Whew!” cried Harvey. “Here’s a mess. We’re wrecked, and badly, too. How in the world are we ever going to get out of this?”
It was, indeed, a serious problem. The Surprise, her bow planks ripped open by the collision, had sunk within a few minutes, and now lay on bottom, with her deck covered. The big sloop, hard aground and full of iron ballast, was not a thing to be moved easily.
“This is a scrape and no mistake,” said Harvey. “Here we are, where a boat may pick us up in a day or a week, but more likely not for a week. We’ve got our man, but the reefs have got us. Well, we have got to figure out some way to get out of it ourselves.”
But first they took account of their wounds, which had, now that the excitement was over, begun to sting and smart. They found that neither Harvey’s nor Tim’s wound was at all serious, mere surface flesh-wounds. The back of young Tim’s hand was bare of skin for the length of three inches across, and Harvey’s shoulder bled badly till it was cleansed and bandaged, but it was the price of victory, and they accounted it cheap. All of them had honourable scars of battle, bruises and scratches without number, and every one of them was proud of his, and wouldn’t have had one less for the world.
Taking their prisoner, securely bound, they all rowed ashore to survey their surroundings, build a fire and get breakfast, and make plans for getting away.
“There’s only one thing to be done,” said Harvey, after they had finished breakfast and sat by the shore, surveying the wrecks of the yachts. “The Surprise is done for. We can’t raise her. But the big sloop is not so badly hurt but what we can repair her, if we can only float her. The first thing we have got to do, when the tide goes out, is to get all that pig iron out of her, and that’s a day’s job, at the least. Then we may beach her at high tide and patch her up. It’s a big contract, though.”
That day they brought the spare sails of the sloop ashore and pitched a tent with them; and, when the tide was low enough for them to work, they began the hard labour of lightening the big sloop of its ballast.
They worked all that tide like beavers, and by night the yacht was light. They camped on shore that night, standing watch by turns over their prisoner.
The next day at low water they found the worst of the leaks in the sloop, and made shift to patch them up temporarily with strips of canvas tacked on and daubed with paint, which they found in the sloop’s locker, and by recaulking some of the seams with oakum. By the next high tide, with hard pumping, she was sufficiently lightened to float clear of the reef, though still leaking badly, and they got her around to a clear, steeply shelving strip of beach, where they rested her more easily when the tide fell, and so could work on the repairs to better advantage.
