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Updated: May 13, 2025
We came to an anchor about half-past eleven, outside the harbour of Helvoetsluys, in a place where the sea sometimes broke and the ship pitched outrageously. You may be sure we were all on deck save Mrs. Gebbie, some of us in cloaks, others mantled in the ship's tarpaulins, all clinging on by ropes, and jesting the most like old sailor-folk that we could imitate.
The tarpaulins on the hatches have thus been kept continually wet, so that their close and heavy texture is rendered quite impervious to the air, The "Chancellor's" pumps afford a copious supply of water, so that I should not suppose that even the daintiest and most luxurious craft belonging to an aristocratic yacht-club was ever subject to a more thorough scouring.
At night we were still in the scrub, without water, but we were not destined to leave it without any, for at ten o'clock a thunderstorm from the north-west came up, and before we could get half our things under canvas, we were thoroughly drenched. Off our tarpaulins we obtained plenty of water for breakfast; but the ground would not retain any.
It might have been the dry bed of a high-banked placer-river, with spare lengths of steel railway-line borne across from bank to bank, covered with beams and sheets of corrugated iron and tarpaulins, with wide chinks to let in the much-needed air and light.
"It wouldn't be a bad idea," said Sammy Block, "to throw out a lot of tarpaulins to stand on, so that none of us will get frozen to the wet deck, as happened before." When the hatch was opened a man with a black beard pushed himself forward towards the companionway. "Keep back here, sir," said Mr. Marcy, clapping his hand upon the man's shoulder.
Because Dick was the leader of the party, the others began to look at him with hatred; Morquil was almost forgotten. When the last piece of equipment was covered with heavy tarpaulins, they constructed a shelter against one side of the pile. It was almost dark when everything was finished, and the captain decided to wait until the next day to sail.
"All right; we surface," the skipper said. "Everybody grab onto something. We'll take the Nifflheim of a slamming around as soon as we're out of the water." We woke up everybody who was sleeping, except the three men who had completely lost consciousness. Those we wrapped up in blankets and tarpaulins, like mummies, and lashed them down.
Agnew and Forrester were to make a geological report on the strata of the section. Jonas was extraordinarily well pleased with his assignment. "I'm going to finish painting the Na-che," he said. "Mr. Milton, have you got anything I can mend the tarpaulins with that go over the decks?" "Needles and twine in the bag labeled Repairs," replied Milton.
A temporary guard house, with a rude verandah of bamboos and palm leaves, had been built between two of the immense spurs of the mighty tree, that shot out many yards from the parent stem like wooden buttresses, whilst overhead there was a sort of stage, made of planks laid across the lower boughs, supporting a quantity of provisions covered with tarpaulins.
"My soul and body!" "I agree with you," said I. On we went, over the waves or through them. Our fellow-passengers curled up beneath their tarpaulins, smiled stoically or groaned dismally, according to their dispositions or digestions. A huge wave the upper third of it, at least swept across the deck and spilled a gallon or two of cold water upon us.
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