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Here's where I want a man!" cried Jim, with contagious energy. "That wreck's mine; I've paid for it, money down; and if it's got to be fought for, I want to see it fought for lively. If you're not back in ninety days, I tell you plainly I'll make one of the biggest busts ever seen upon this coast. It's life or death for Mr. Dodd and me.
In front of her loomed the great bulk of the Boldero, vague and shadowy in the flickering gleam of the searchlight As the gold-seekers looked at her through the bull's-eyes of the conning tower, several great forms emerged from beneath the wreck's bows. "Deep-water sharks!" exclaimed Captain Weston, "and monsters, too. But they can't bother us. Now to get out the gold!" Attacked by Sharks
The men's eyes ached and the intolerable sun pierced their double hats and dulled their brains. When all was ready, they waited and watched the sandy water creep up Arcturus' plates until the ropes stretched and groaned and the hulk began to list. On the wreck's other side, the tug's mast and funnel slanted.
If I may speak, as coxswain of the lifeboat, I would like to say that all hands concerned in this rescue, them in the tug as well as the crew of the boat, did what might be expected of English sailors for such they are, whether you call some of them boatmen or not; and I know in my heart, and say it without fear, that from the hour of leaving Ramsgate Harbour to the moment when we sighted the wreck's mast, there was only one thought in all of us, and that was that the Almighty would give us the strength and direct us how to save the lives of the poor fellows to whose assistance we had been sent.
"Now you see for yourself," Pinkerton concluded: "there's every last chance that Trent has skipped to Honolulu, and it won't take much of that fifty thousand dollars to charter a smart schooner down to Midway. Here's where I want a man!" cried Jim, with contagious energy. "That wreck's mine; I've paid for it, money down; and if it's got to be fought for, I want to see it fought for lively.
He may walk about with his eyes open, but his brain's pretty much asleep; he's just equal to lounging and smoking. There are just two things these men can do fish, and gather the stuff from wrecks. They'll make from eight dollars a day at the fishing, and from sixteen to twenty when a wreck's in. They can afford to be idle the rest of the time, and they are gloriously idle."
"Perhaps I'd better take a trip up the creek in the evening. We want the coal and I don't altogether trust Montgomery," he said. Lister agreed that it might be prudent for Brown to go, but he was occupied by the pump and they said no more. To lift the cargo when the water covered the wreck's hatches and loosened the pulpy mass was easier and he must keep his engine running full speed.
Lister went, making an effort for balance, because he now felt ridiculously light. Then the reflections were puzzling, for the light came and went with the rise and fall of the swell. Yet he could see and he followed the diver until they stopped opposite the wreck's port bilge. Her side went up like a dark wall, covered by waving weed.
What stirred me up, though, was the rough way he did it, and the hopeless sag to the wreck's chin after he's heard the decision. "Sweet disposition he's got, eh?" says I. "But don't take him too serious. He ain't the final word in this shop, and there's nobody gets next to the big wheeze oftener durin' the day than yours truly. Maybe I could get that option of yours passed on.
"What's the matter now?" called Steve, so anxious about the safety of those who clung to the sloping roof of the doomed building that he would not even turn his head all the way around, but shot the words back over his shoulder. "Why, the blooming old wreck's going all to pieces, so that we'll each have to pick out a timber, and straddle mighty soon, if it keeps on this way!"
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