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Updated: May 7, 2025
Even the most ignorant passenger knew that the wrecked engines could not be repaired or compounded. They knew that the Doraine was completely paralysed. The power to move at will was for ever lost, the force that had driven her resistlessly along the chosen path was still. The powerful propellers were idle, the huge stern-post wrenched so badly that the rudder was useless.
Soon after the fog came on, one of these indicators, properly protected from the attraction of the metal about it, was put into position on Crab C. Before very long it indicated the proximity of the Adamant; and, guided by its steel point, the Crab moved quietly to the ironclad, attached itself to its stern-post, and allowed the happy crew of Crab K to depart coastward.
But somehow I could not get to sleep, probably on account of the oppressive closeness of the atmosphere, for it was stiflingly hot, although the skylights and companion were wide open; and there I lay, tossing restlessly from side to side in a state of preternatural wakefulness, listening to the lap and gurgle of the water against the ship's side, the creaking of the bulk-heads, the rattling of the hooks which held the cabin doors wide open, the yerking of the main-sheet blocks, the jerk-jerk of the rudder and of the lashed wheel above it, with the swish of the water under the counter and about the stern-post as the vessel rolled lazily upon the long sluggish swell which came creeping slowly up from the eastward.
He was placed in that way so that one could get a right idea of his great dimensions. You could see that he was just a shade higher than the table indeed, a huge fellow for a dog. Then there was a description which went into the details. It gave his enormous weight 150 1/2 pounds, and his length 4 feet 2 inches, from stem to stern-post; and his height 3 feet 1 inch, to the top of his back.
Under these circumstances, therefore, he proposed merely to get slings around the after body of the schooner, as near her stern-post, indeed, as would be safe, and to raise that extremity of the vessel to the surface, leaving most of the weight of the craft to rest on the bows.
This was a project which might be left for consideration, and they were, besides, obliged to put off its execution until the next spring. About the 15th of May the keel of the new vessel lay along the dockyard, and soon the stem and stern-post, mortised at each of its extremities, rose almost perpendicularly.
One thing is quite certain: we must have a boiler of some sort, or we shall never be able to get those planks into position especially those about the head of the stern-post without splitting them. And I would take a good deal of trouble to avoid such a misfortune as that."
The brave crew of the Brunswick were, however, not idle even yet, and continued their fire so well-directed that they split the Vengeur's rudder and shattered her stern-post, besides making a large hole in her counter, through which they could see the water rushing furiously.
The stem had a notched knob provided for this very purpose, and there was a stern-post against which a steersman might press a paddle and thus swerve the canoe in any direction. But it was slow work. The craft were moored without any semblance of order, yet Suarez was forced to secure them in a definite sequence, or a string of half-a-dozen would become unmanageable.
It was my custom to indulge in a saltwater bath every morning in the ship's head, one of the men playing the hose upon me for a quarter of an hour or so, and never did that bath seem a greater luxury to me than on this particular morning, for the heat came with the sun, and I envied the fish their ability to escape it by sinking deep into the cool, blue, crystalline depths; indeed I should most probably have been tempted to imitate them as far as possible by plunging overboard and swimming twice or thrice round the ship, had I not happened to have noticed a large shark under her counter, when, to test the clearness of the water, I happened to lean over the taffrail to look at the rudder and stern-post.
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