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"We shall find some food, at all events; and if we can get nothing more, we may shove off again," observed David. "Oh! I hope we shall get much more than that," exclaimed Harry, in a confident tone. "What do you think of a compass, and sail, and spars, and rigging for our boat, and if so we shall without difficulty be able to find our way home. Hurrah! what do you think of that?"
"And I'd as soon chance it on a hen-coop." THESE sturdy youngsters were not easily frightened, and Jack Cockrell, the landsman, was confident that wind and tide would change to send the little raft shoreward. So tranquil was the sea that they rode secure and dry upon the cabin hatch which was buoyed by the two short spars.
Though there was still a possibility of damaging the spars of the brigantine by firing across the land, the feebleness of his own crew, reduced as it was by more than half its numbers, the danger of doing injury to the farm-houses that were here and there placed along the low cliffs, and the necessity of preparation to meet the critical pass ahead, united to prevent the attempt.
"I thought of getting them in just now, but waited to call you first." "Well, you needn't wait any longer, Fosset," rejoined the skipper. "Pass the word for the bo'sun forrad." "Yes, yes, sir. Quartermaster, call Masters!" "Bo'sun, pipe all hands to hoist spars aboard!"
The proper precautions were not neglected in the mean time. Men were sent aloft to do what they could, under the circumstances, with the two spars, and the strain was a little relieved by keeping the lugger as much away as might be done without enabling the frigate to set her studding-sails.
Joe Cross had incidentally said that he believed it was a brig, and that night as Rodd lay half asleep, half wakeful, in his cot, kept from finding the customary repose of a tired lad by the heat of the narrow cabin below, the word brig brought to mind the vessel that had so nearly run upon them in Havre-de-Grace, and in a drowsy stupid way he had pictured her tall tapering spars, the flapping of her stay-sail, and the rush of the storm.
To those who accompanied the ship on her maiden voyage it must have seemed to justify the doubts expressed by the mathematicians concerning the practicability of designing a steamship which could carry enough coal to drive the engines all the way across the Atlantic, for the luckless "Sirius" exhausted her four hundred and fifty tons of coal before reaching Sandy Hook, and could not have made the historic passage up New York Bay under steam, except for the liberal use of spars and barrels of resin which she had in cargo.
Of course we were in no hurry, it now being in our power to go six feet to that ship's one. In executing our purpose, we passed close to the wreck of the English frigate's spars. There they were rolling about on the troubled water, and we actually saw the body of a man caught in some of the rigging, as the sea occasionally tossed it to the surface.
"Now, Mr Adair," said the skipper, "you may see what you can do with her. Let the captains of the guns try their hands upon her individually, doing their best to cut up her spars and rigging. We want to capture, not to sink her; she is far too fine a ship to be sent to the bottom, therefore spare her hull as much as possible."
Had we luffed, for example, high enough for our spinnaker to jibe, the craft would probably have "turned the turtle" with us; or, if we had proved fortunate enough to escape this, we should most certainly have made a clean sweep of the spars. We were almost within hail of the leading boat when she fastened to an enormous whale.
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