“I took the water breaker off before you were up,” he said as he came alongside. “There was ice on the pool. It struck me as a warning that we had better lose no time.”
“That’s obvious,” returned Jimmy. “Hand me up the breaker. We’ll get the pumps rigged first thing.”
Breakfast was hurried. The weather was favorable for work, and they could not expect it to continue so. In an hour the sloop8 had been warped9 close to the wreck11 and Jimmy put on the diving dress. He was surprised to feel the half-instinctive repugnance12 from going down which he thought he had got rid of; but this could not be allowed to influence him, and he resolutely13 descended14 the ladder. In a few minutes he reached the wreck, and found one bilge deeply embedded15; but the opposite side was lifted up, and a broad strip of planking had been torn away. Jimmy could see some distance into the interior, and his lamp showed that the stream had washed out part of the sand which had barred their way to the bulkhead cutting off the strong-room. This had been strained by the working of the wreck, and it seemed possible to wrench16 the beams loose.
He attacked the nearest with his shovel17, using force when he found a purchase, but the timber proved to be firmly mortised in. He lost count of time as he struggled to prize it out, and did not stop until he grew distressed18 from the pressure. His heart was beating hard and his breath difficult to get, but the beam still defied him. Making his way out of the hold, he stumbled forward toward the ladder; and when his comrades removed his helmet on board the sloop, he sat still for a few moments to recover. It was inexpressibly refreshing19 to breathe the keen, natural air. At last he explained what he had found below, and added:
“My suggestion is that we bore out an opening for the saw; then we could cut the stanchion through and prize the cross-timbers off.”
“The trouble is that we haven20’t a big auger,” Bethune objected. “You often run up against a difficulty of the kind when you’re using tools: the thing you want the most is the one you haven’t got.”
“Mortise-chisel21 might do,” said Moran. “How thick’s the timber?”
“Three or four inches. By its toughness I imagine it’s oak or hackmatack.”
“Then, there’s a big job ahead,” grumbled22 Bethune; “and my experience is that as soon as you drive a chisel into old work you come upon a spike23. Unfortunately, we haven’t a grindstone.”
“Quit your pessimism24 and find the chisel!” snapped Moran. “I’m going down.”
They watched the bubbles that marked his progress rise to the surface in a wavy25 line and then stop and break in a fixed26 patch. Rather sooner than they expected the bubbles moved back; and Moran looked crestfallen27 when they took off his diving dress.
“Did you cut out much stuff?” Bethune asked.
“No,” said Moran, holding up the chisel; “this is what I did. Came across a blamed big spike at the second cut.”
Bethune giggled28. Even Jimmy grinned. There was a deep notch29 in the edge of the tool.
“Your philosophy isn’t much good,” Moran said grumpily. “It helps you to prophesy30 troubles, but not to avoid them. We’ll have to spend some time in rubbing that nick out.”
“I’ll try the engineer’s cold-chisel,” Bethune replied. “With good luck, I might cut the spike.”
He took the tool and an ordinary carpenter’s chisel down with him; and the edge of the chisel was broken when he returned.
“I’ve cut the spike, and dug out about an inch of the wood,” he reported. “Why are you frowning, Jimmy?”
“It looks as if we may spend a week over that timber. These confounded preliminaries sicken me!”
“They’re common.” Bethune launched off into his philosophy. “If you undertake anything that’s not quite usual, half your labor31 consists in clearing the ground; when you get at the job itself, it often doesn’t amount to much.”
“Chuck it!” Moran interrupted. “Jimmy, it’s your turn.”
Jimmy stayed below as long as he could stand it, hacking32 savagely33 with broken chisels34 at the hard wood, and scraping out the fragments with bruised35 fingers; then he came up and Moran took his place. It was trying work, and grew no easier when, by persistent36 effort, they made an opening for the saw. The tool had to be driven horizontally at an awkward height from the sand, and the position tired their wrists and arms. Still, the weather was propitious37, which was seldom the case, and they toiled38 on, until exhaustion39 stopped them when it was getting dark. Then Moran sent Bethune ashore40 to look for stones with a cutting grit41, and they sat in the cabin patiently rubbing down the nicked tools, while the deck above them grew white with frost.
It cost them two days to break the beam, and on the evening they succeeded there was a sharp drop in the temperature.
Jimmy was cooking supper when Moran called him up on deck and pointed42 seaward.
“See that?” he said. “Seems to me we’ve got notice to quit.”
Searching the western horizon, where the sea cut in an indigo43 streak44 against a dull red glow, Jimmy made out a faintly glimmering45 patch of white. Taking up the glasses, he saw that it was low and ragged46, and fringed on its windward edge by leaping surf. This showed it was of some depth in the water, and he recognized it as a floe47 of thick northern ice.
“Yes,” he answered gravely; “we’ll have to hurry now.”
They spent the next week attacking the bulkhead. Jimmy thought it would have resisted them only that it had obviously been built in haste and here and there the strengthening irons had wrenched48 away through the working of the hull49. They lost no time, but the work was heavy, and tried them hard.
It was late in the afternoon, and blowing fresh enough to make diving risky50, when Jimmy prepared to go down for what he hoped would be the last attempt; but stopping a few moments he looked anxiously about. Gray fog streamed up from seaward in ragged wisps, and the long swell51 had broken into short, white-topped combers, over which the sloop plunged52 with spray-swept bows, straining hard at her cables as the flood tide ran past.
“We might hold on for another hour,” Bethune said hopefully; but breaking off he pointed out to sea. “That settles it,” he added. “If it’s any way possible, we must cut the bulkhead to-night.”
A tall, glimmering shape crept out of the fog about a mile away. It was irregular in outline, and looked like a detached crag, except that it shone with a strange ghostly brightness against the leaden haze53. It came on, sliding smoothly54 forward with the tide, another mass which was smaller and lower rocking in its wake; and then a third crept into sight behind. The men gazed at them with anxious faces; then Jimmy held out his hand for the helmet.
“They’ll ground before they reach us, but the sooner I get to work the better,” he said.
A bent55 iron plate hung from a tottering56 beam when he crawled up to the after end of the hold, and he savagely tried to wrench it out with a bar. The effort taxed his strength, but when he felt that he could keep it up no longer the timber yielded, and he fell forward into the gap. It cost him some trouble to recover his balance, and while he crouched57 on hands and knees, the disturbed water pulsed heavily into the dark hole. Lifting his lamp, he saw that the floor was deep in sand; and out of the sand two wooden boxes projected. He found that he could not drag them clear, and it seemed impossible to remove them without some tackle, but in groping about he came upon a bag. It was made of common canvas, and had been heavily sealed, though part of the wax had broken away, but on lifting it Jimmy found the material strong enough to hold its contents.
He sat still for a moment or two, his heart beating with exultant
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