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The flagstaff was therefore again erected near where it had before stood, and the drift wood collected to dry in the sun in order that it might serve to form a beacon-fire at night. The first thing to be done was to caulk the boat.
"Some trading vessel may sight us in the nick o' time," hopefully suggested Joe. "Never say die!" "Trust most honest skippers to give the Inlet a wide berth," was the lugubrious reply. "This harbor was used by pirates afore Blackbeard's time. I was a silly 'prentice-boy, same as you, Joe, wi' Cap'n Willum Kidd when we lay in here to caulk his galley for the long voyage to Madagascar."
At the same instant one of the lookouts in the bows who had still remained at his post and had probably been awakened from a quiet "caulk" by the awful portent, suddenly shouted out in a ringing voice, that thrilled through every heart on board "Sail ho!" Captain Applegarth and the rest of us on the bridge faced round again at once. "Where away, where away, my man?" cried the skipper excitedly.
Returned to labor on the boat with as much vigor as our weak and debilitated state would admit, but it was a day of trial to us all; for the Spaniards and we Americans could not well understand each other's plans, and they being naturally petulant, would not work, nor listen with any patience for Joseph, our English fellow prisoner, to explain our views they would sometimes undo what they had done, and in a few minutes replace it again; however before night we began to caulk her seams, by means of pieces of hard mangrove, made in form of a caulking-iron, and had the satisfaction of seeing her in a form something like a boat.
"Where's Muster Leigh?" said Tom Tully. "Isn't he along of you?" said Waters. "No, I ar'n't seen him for ever so long." "I know how it is," growled Tom Tully, "he's having a caulk under the lee of one of these here stones while we do all the hunting about; and I can't walk half so well as I used, after being shut up aboard that there little cutter."
As it would be altogether useless to overhaul the rigging, caulk decks, &c., unless the ship could be got out of her berth, everybody worked with that end in view at first. In the course of a week, the water-casks were under her bottom, and it was thought that the vessel would have about an inch to spare.
The wind had fallen much during the night, and had worked round to the east, and under sails and oars the Bonito left the island, none of the pirates venturing to follow in pursuit. The oars were soon laid in, and the men, with mallets and chisels, set to work to caulk the seams through which the water was making its way.
It had never occurred to him that a physical revolution was already in progress; that the introduction of sheep meant the ultimate extirpation of all trees and scrubs, except the inedible pine; and that the perpetual trampling of those sharp little hoofs would in time caulk the spongy, absorbent surface; so that these fluffy, scrub-clad expanses would become a country of rich and spacious plains, variegated by lakes and forests, and probably enjoying a fairly equable rainfall.
When he began to caulk the calendar, he ought to have finished the business in a workmanlike manner." "That, however," continued Wolston, "he left to Pope Gregory, who decreed that three leap years should be suppressed in four centuries.
On that day a bark passed close to the land, which was captured by the English pinnace, being laden with sarsaparilla, and botijas or pots of butter and honey, with other things. Throwing all the sarsaparilla overboard, the English removed all their cannon into this bark, and then laid their own ship on shore to new caulk and trim her bottom.
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