Having so far completed their examination, the boat was signalled to again approach, and a few minutes later the party found themselves once more on the deck of the Flying Cloud, the chief-mate briefly reporting that the barque was undoubtedly abandoned.
“Then,” said Captain Blyth, hesitatingly, “I suppose there is nothing more to be done but to hoist up the boat and fill away upon our course again?”
“No; I suppose not, sir,” replied Bryce, in a tone of voice which very sufficiently indicated his supreme indifference.
“Very well,” said the skipper, “man the—”
“Excuse me, Captain Blyth, but may I offer a suggestion?” interrupted Mr. Gaunt.
“Assuredly, my dear sir,” responded the skipper; “what suggestion would you offer?”
“Well,” said Mr. Gaunt, “if I may be permitted to say so, it seems a great pity to leave that fine ship there, to be possibly run into by and perhaps to occasion the loss of another ship; or, as an alternative, to eventually founder. So far as I could perceive, the hull is as sound and tight as ever it was, and, by the way she floats, I do not believe she has very much water in her; and with regard to her spars, her fore and main-topgallant masts are snapped off short by the caps, which appears to be about all the damage done in that direction. Now, why should you not right her, pump her out, man her, and send her into port? If her cargo is valuable, as is likely to be the case, it would put a handsome sum of salvage money into your pocket.”
“So it would, sir,” replied the skipper. “I was thinking of that just now, but couldn’t exactly see how the thing is to be done; and as Mr. Bryce seemed to have no idea of any such thing, why I concluded it must be impracticable.”
“By no means, I should say,” observed Mr. Gaunt. “We engineers, you know, are constantly accomplishing things which other people would be disposed to pronounce impossible; and I confess I see no great difficulty in this case. I believe the barque is only held down in her present position by the weight of the water in her canvas.”
Mr. Gaunt then indicated to the skipper the means which he thought would be likely to prove successful; and Captain Blyth, though somewhat doubtful of the result, was sufficiently impressed to express his willingness to try the experiment, Mr. Gaunt volunteering—to his wife’s secret dismay—to assist by taking charge of a small working party on board the derelict.
To work all hands accordingly went. The gig once more shoved off for the barque, which was boarded by the energetic engineer and four men, who took with them a coil of light line, an axe, and, of course, their clasp knives. The little party got out on the weather side of the ship, in the main-chains, uncoiled their line, and were then all ready to commence operations. The gig, meanwhile, returned to the ship, and received on board a large but light new steel towing hawser, which was coiled down in long flakes fore and aft the boat, and with this she once more went alongside the barque, to leeward of her this time, however—that is to say, alongside the vessel’s upturned bilge. A rope’s-end was hove into her by the little working party in the main-chains, and by this means the end of the hawser was hauled on board, and, with some labour and difficulty, eventually made fast round the mainmast head, just above the truss of the main-yard. This done, a signal was made to the Flying Cloud, which had meanwhile drifted some distance away, and the ship thereupon filled her main-topsail and bore up, waring short round upon her heel. At the same time the crew hauled up the courses, clewed up royals and topgallant-sails, and, in short, reduced the canvas to the three topsails, jib, and spanker. She was now upon the larboard tack. Having stood on a sufficient distance, Captain Blyth went in stays, and the ship was again headed for the barque. Now came the only delicate part of the operation. But the skipper was an accomplished seaman, and he managed his part of the work to perfection, bringing the Flying Cloud up alongside the barque so close to leeward that there was only bare room for the boat between the two hulls; and at the proper moment the main-topsail was backed and the way of the ship stopped. A rope’s-end, to which the other end of the hawser was attached, was then promptly hove from the boat alongside and smartly hauled inboard over the ship’s bows, and several turns of the hawser were taken round the windlass-bitts. Then, by carefully manipulating the canvas, the Flying Cloud was brought head to wind, or with her bows towards the derelict, until, dropping to leeward all the time, the hawser was tautened out and a strain brought upon it. The topsails were then laid flat aback, and the result was awaited with some anxiety; the boat meanwhile remaining alongside the derelict to take off Mr. Gaunt and his little party in the event of any accident happening. For a few minutes no visible result attended these manoeuvres; but at length a shout from Mr. Gaunt of “Hurrah, there she rises! Be ready to let go the hawser on board there when I give the word” was followed by a barely perceptible indication that the vessel was righting. The movement increased; and then, still gradually, the masts rose out of the water until they were at an angle of about forty-five degrees with the horizon, when the vessel recovered herself so suddenly that the little party on board had to cling on for their lives or they would have been flung into the sea. A heavy roll or two followed, and the vessel then settled upon an even keel once more, with the water pouring in torrents out of the canvas down on to the deck, and wetting Mr. Gaunt and his crew to the skin. Captain Blyth was personally superintending his share of the operations from the Flying Cloud’s forecastle, and at the proper moment the end of the hawser was cast off and let fly overboard, to be recovered later on by the gig.
The first thing the engineer now did was to heave-to the barque as well as he could with his scanty crew; his next act was to sound the well, with the result that a depth of five feet of water was found in the hold. This, however, was not so formidable a matter as it at first sight appeared; for, the hold being tightly packed with cargo, the water could only get into the interstices, and a comparatively small quantity would consequently show a large rise in the pump-well.
A strong gang was now sent on board the barque, with the chief-mate in command; and the pumps were at once manned. A quarter of an hour’s work at these sufficed to show that the vessel was making no water (that which was already in her having doubtless made its way in through the top-sides and down the pump-well whilst the craft was on her beam-ends); the men therefore went to work with a will, and by eight bells in the afternoon watch it was reported that the ship was dry.
Mr. Gaunt, meanwhile, made his way into the cabin as soon as the mate took charge, and proceeded to give the place a general overhaul, with the object of ascertaining who and what the vessel was. He succeeded in finding the log-book, log-slate, and the captain’s desk, with all of which he proceeded on board the Flying Cloud. The articles were placed in the hands of Captain Blyth, who forthwith sat down to examine them, with the result that the barque was found to be the Umhloti of Aberdeen, her commander’s name being Anderson. She was from Port Natal, bound to London, thirty-three days out when discovered; and her cargo consisted of hides, ivory, indigo, coffee, sugar, and wool. She was therefore a very valuable find, well worth the time and trouble they were devoting to her. The last entry on the log-slate had been made at eight o’clock on the previous morning; and the log-book had been written-up as far as noon on the day preceding that. Captain Blyth had therefore no difficulty in arriving at the conclusion that the vessel must have been capsized in a very similar squall to that which had struck the Flying Cloud on the previous day, and at about the same moment. This surmise was confirmed by the fact that when Mr. Gaunt had entered the captain’s state-room he had found the chronometers still going, though nearly run down. He had, of course, at once taken the precaution to wind them afresh.
Having