United States or Dominican Republic ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Those who could swim every now and then struck off to get hold of pieces of wood to serve our purpose. Among other things the jolly-boat's mast was found, and it was agreed that it would serve us well for a mast for the raft. It was hard work getting up the canvas which hung down in the water, but at length with our knives we cut off a sufficient quantity for a sail.
On the way, sometimes, they had serious difficulties to encounter, for the ground in many places was moist and spongy, causing the feet of the men hauling to sink deeply into the soil as they tugged at the towing- rope of the jolly-boat's carriage; but, as frequently Mr Meldrum remarked, to rouse the seamen's energies, "difficulties were only made for brave men to conquer," so at it they went with a will which soon overcame the dead weight of the load they had to drag behind them a fresh towing team relieving the first at the expiration of every half hour, so as not to weary the men out by a too prolonged strain at such unusual exertion.
While Mr McCarthy and the jolly-boat's crew were thus trying to save all the "flotsam and jetsam" they could from the wreck, Ben Boltrope and those of the crew told off to help him, as "carpenter's mates," were as busy as bees house-building, if running up the shanty which Mr Meldrum had designed could be so designated; while the rest of the party were lending all the aid they could in fetching and carrying what the actual workers required.
"The jolly-boat's clean gone; the life-boat's a wreck; the to'gallant bulwark, both sides, is gone, for'ard of the fore riggin'; the staysail blowed out of the bolt-ropes directly the gale struck us; and worst of all we've lost three of our little crowd." "Lost!" I ejaculated. "What d'ye mean, man?" "Just what I says, Mr Blackburn," answered the boatswain.
"Where away?" called out Mr McCarthy, who had the jolly-boat's crew round her, running her into the water the moment he heard the cry. "Right to leeward of the reef, sir, about a mile out," answered the look-out, adding quickly afterwards, "it looks a pretty biggish bit of timber, sir, and rides high in the water."
"How did they come to suspect him?" asked Dick, ignoring the rest of his commander's outburst. "Mrs. Haxton put 'em on his track. You see, it was this way. I sent the jolly-boat's crew back to the yacht with, orders that Tagg was to arm every mother's son on board, an' be ready for action when Mr. Fenshawe gev the word. The old man wasn't half mad, I can tell you.
They scraped the jolly-boat's planking, and pitched her inside and out; after which they collected all the stray blocks of basalt they could find and built a "shebeen," as Mr McCarthy called it, to contain her, and then housed it and her over with all the spare planks they could get hold of marching miles along the black sandy beach for the purpose of seeing what stray timber might be stranded.
We then put the jolly-boat's oars and the boat-hook, which had been preserved, into the small boat, and shoved off, carrying a lump of coral with a long rope to serve as our anchor and cable. We first tried the centre of the lagoon, where before long I got a bite, and hauled up a fish with a large mouth and scales of rich and varied colours.
We were clear out of the ship, but not yet ashore in our stockade. Narrative Continued by the Doctor: The Jolly-boat's Last Trip THIS fifth trip was quite different from any of the others. In the first place, the little gallipot of a boat that we were in was gravely overloaded.
"We had managed to find one oar and the jolly-boat's lug sail, and this we rigged up as much by way of a signal as anything else, for of course we could do nothing but drive dead before the wind. And we hadn't left the barque above ten minutes when down she went, stern foremost, and there we were left adrift and as helpless as a lot of babies in that raging sea.
Word Of The Day