Part 38

Mayo shouted at them with a violence that made hideous din in that narrow space. “You two men wade across here to me or I'll come after you with an ax in one hand and a hammer in the other! Damn you, I mean business!”

They were silent, then there sounded the splash of water and they came, muttering. They had recognized the ring of desperate resolve in his command.

Mayo, when he heard their stertorous breathing close at hand, groped for them and shoved tools into their clutch. He retained the hammer and chisel for himself.

“That's about all I need you for just now--for tool-racks,” he growled. “Make sure you don't drop those.”

The upturned schooner rolled sluggishly, and every now and then the water swashed across her cabin with extra impetus, making footing insecure.

“If I tumble down I'll have to drop 'em,” whimpered Oolph.

“Then don't come up. Drowning will be an easier death for you,” declared the captain, menacingly. He was sounding the bulkhead with his hammer.

The tapping quickly showed him where the upright beams were located on the other side of the sheathing. In his own mind he was not as sanguine as his activity might have indicated. It was blind experiment--he could not estimate the obstacles which were ahead of him. But he did understand, well enough, that if they were to escape they must do so through the bottom of the vessel amidship; there, wallowing though she was, there might be some freeboard. He had seen vessels floating bottom up. Usually a section of the keel and a portion of the garboard streaks were in sight above the sea. But there could be no escape through the bottom of the craft above them where they stood in the cabin. He knew that the counter and buttock must be well under water.

“Have you a full cargo belowdecks?” he asked.

“No,” stated Captain Candage, hinting by his tone that he wondered what difference that would make to them in the straits in which they were placed.

Mayo felt a bit of fresh courage. He had been afraid that the Polly's hold would be found to be stuffed full of lumber. His rising spirits prompted a little sarcasm.

“How did it ever happen that you didn't plug the trap you set for us?”

“Couldn't get but two-thirds cargo below because the lumber was sawed so long. Made it up by extra deck-lo'd.”

“Yes, piled it all on deck so as to make her top-heavy--so as to be sure of catching us,” suggested Mayo, beginning to work his hammer and chisel on the sheathing.

“'Tain't no such thing!” expostulated Captain Candage, missing the irony. “Them shingles and laths is packet freight, and I couldn't put 'em below because I've got to deliver 'em this side of New York. And you don't expect me to overhaul a whole decklo'd so as to--”

“Not now,” broke in Mayo. “The Atlantic Ocean has attended to the case of that deckload.”

“My Gawd, yes!” mourned the master. “I was forgetting that we are upside down--and that shows what a state of mind I'm in!”

Mayo had picked his spot for operations. He drove his chisel through the sheathing as close to the cabin floor as he could. Remembering that the schooner was upside down and that the floor was over his head, the aperture he was starting work on would bring him nearest the bilge. When he had chiseled a hole big enough for a start, he secured the saw from the mate and sawed a square opening. He lifted himself up and worked his way through the hole and found himself on lumber and out of water. It was what he had been hoping to find, after the assurance from the master: the partial cargo of lumber in the hold had settled to the deck when the schooner tipped over. Investigating with groping hands, he assured himself that there were fully three feet of space between the cargo and the bottom of the vessel.

“Come here with your daughter, Captain Candage!” he called, cheerily. “It's dry in here.”

He kneeled and held his hands out through the opening, directing them with his voice, reaching into the pitchy darkness until her hands found his, and then he brought her up to him and in upon the lumber.

“It's a little better, even if it's nothing to brag about,” he told her. “Sit over there at one side so that the men can crawl in past you. I'll need them to help me.”

“And what do you think now--shall we die?” she asked, in tremulous whisper.

“No, I don't think so,” he told her, stoutly.

They were alone in the hold for a few moments while the others were helping one another through the opening.

“But in this trap--in the dark--crowded in here!” Her tone did not express doubt; it was pathetic endeavor to understand their plight. “My father and his men are frightened--they have given up. And you told me that you are frightened!”

“Yes, I am!”

“But they are not doing anything to help you.”

“Perhaps that is because they are not scared as much as I am. It often happens that the more frightened a man is in a tight place the more he jumps around and the harder he tries to get out.”