Vandersee folded away his map and then outlined the plan he had formed.
While he spoke, Gordon shifted uneasily to the other side of the room,
merely saying, though Little had not spoken:
"Don't look at me like that, Little. I'm clean now, if I wasn't when you
first met me; please let that be my excuse for the present for anything
I may have done to offend you or Houten, won't you?"
Little colored deeply and looked embarrassed. He found he had been
staring rather inquisitively at the man he had come to supersede, and
with his native courtesy and honesty he thrust his hand over the table
to grip Gordon's. Neither man uttered another word; but Gordon's eyes
unmistakably said, "Thank you."
Vandersee watched this little side play, pausing in his explanation,
then resumed:
"You see, Captain, as long as your brigantine is blocking up the river
for his schooner, Leyden is not likely to hang around here. And the
trails over the island are so many and divergent that I believe all the
men I have at my command can scarcely hope to track every one of his
gang. Of course, we want him most; but every man of his crew is wanted,
too, and unless the _Barang_ is raised and moved, to give him hope of
escape, I'm afraid he will prove slippery for sometime yet. One other
thing is, that through his cunning and lies, the Mission folk here fully
believe that Cornelius Houten is the rogue, and their reports to my
Government are becoming quite harmful to our friend in Batavia.
"I might say here that Houten is on his way to us by now." An
exclamation of fresh surprise from the skipper halted the big Hollander,
and Gordon's face went livid again. Vandersee hastened to add: "Don't be
alarmed, Gordon. You have suffered, and I give you my word that Houten
fully understands everything." He turned to the rest: "I sent one of my
runners to the coast with a cable to Houten the moment I knew surely
that there was no gold in his river. I thought it best.
"Now, Captain Barry, how long will it take to raise your ship?"
"With Rolfe and Blunt and a full crew I can get her afloat in two tides,
unless her leaks are bigger than her own and some extra pumps can
check," the skipper replied confidently. "How's the mud here?"
"Mere slime. Pumps ought to suck it out. As for your mates and the crew,
they are all living in the village. Plenty of huts there now, since most
of the male natives have gone over to Leyden. Two tides then?"
"Plenty. What do you want me to do with her when she floats?"
"Take her downstream to that swampy creek I pointed out in coming up.
I'll have some men clear away the grasses at the entrance, and she will
float inside there easily. You can leave her there, hidden from the
river, until one is almost abreast of her; and if luck favors us to the
extent that Leyden falls into the trap, we can haul out quickly and get
his vessel as she comes down, with all her crimes in evidence aboard of
her."
"But suppose she slips us before I can get the _Barang_ clear? What of
Miss Sheldon then, if she's on board?"
"Once more I ask you to rest easy about that, Captain," Vandersee smiled
back, and suddenly Jack Barry felt complete trust take hold of him. He
nodded, without further question, and turned to Gordon. "How about you,
Gordon? Want to lend a hand?"
"To raise your ship? Like a shot, skipper. And the harder the work you
give me, the better I'll like it. I'm in need of hardening."
The river soon seethed with activity again. Bill Blunt came down from
the village, leading the crew with great importance, for he was going to
a job that would call forth all his exhaustive knowledge of the sailor's
craft. Jerry Rolfe scouted for boats, and by half-ebb tide the
_Barang's_ wet decks were filled with men.
Rigging extra pumps occupied all the time until low water, and as the
sluggish stream paused at slack, just before turning, every available
hand in the ship ground away on brakes and chain pumps until the old
brigantine gushed yellow water at every scupper. Barry, hanging over the
hatch coaming, peered anxiously into the dark hold, hoping against hope
that the pumps were gaining. The sight of swirling waters that surged
upward from the sides and spread oilily over the lowering surface proved
that the leaks were too serious to be completely checked, and it was
necessary to do something else.
"Have to send divers over and try to plug those leaks," he announced and
stared doubtfully at the panting crew. Gordon asked some questions of
Rolfe, then stepped beside the skipper.
"You can see about where they are, can't you, Barry?" he asked, peering
down at the foul water inside the ship.
"So far, yes. But they must be near water line, or the rascals could
never have made 'em. Unluckily we can't raise her to her water line; and
I hate to send men down into that slime. It might mean suffocation.
Don't you smell the gas?"
"But why not outside?"
"Too smooth, Gordon. Inside there are stringers and frames to claw on to
while feeling around; outside her skin is too slick for anything except
a barnacle to grab hold of."
Gordon coolly flung off his jacket and kicked off his shoes. And
little, at first not seeing the move, suddenly sprang to join him,
throwing aside his own clothes with a whoop of joy.
"Gosh, Barry! Why didn't you say you needed a fish?"
The skipper grinned at him in spite of his uneasiness at letting men go
down there and shrugged his shoulders resignedly.
"Go ahead, both of you. If Gordon's as much at home in the water as I've
seen you, our job is done. Don't know how I forgot your mudlark
proclivities, Little."
There was a glow of enthusiasm on Gordon's face as he followed Little
over the hatch coaming, and Barry thrilled to see it. There was needed
no better proof of the man's complete emancipation from the alcoholic
curse that had made him a willing and pliable tool in Leyden's crooked
schemes. For a moment the skipper watched the two men, not quite
satisfied of their safety, ready in an instant to order them up or go
after them himself, should they get into trouble. But he was soon
reassured. First Little came up, snorted choking mud from his nostrils,
inhaled a breath of clean air, and plunged down again. Gordon followed,
and at the second plunge both reported having found a leak.
"Holes about an inch across, in groups of five in a space as big as a
plate, skipper," gasped Little, resting before taking another dive
farther forward. Gordon had found a similar leak; and another search
discovered a series of such places running half the length of the ship.
"Holy smoke!" growled Barry in wonderment. "Must have had twenty water
rats working on her to do that in such a short time. Rolfe must have
been dreaming not to hear anything."
But Rolfe and Bill Blunt were away in the boats, picking up the upstream
anchor which could not be hove in, simply because the ship could not be
brought over it. And watching their arduous labor, Barry put aside his
rising irritation and postponed the warm reproof he was bursting to hurl
at them. Instead, he set men busily to work making plugs for the holes,
and when the pumps were still for the moment he dropped into a canoe
alongside and paddled down to join the boats.
"Got it, hey?" he remarked, nodding with approval as Blunt's boat hauled
the great anchor dripping between his boat and Rolfe's, where the mate's
crew made it fast, swinging on both gunwales by a baulk of timber laid
across, ready to be either let go again, or taken under the brigantine's
bows and hove up with the windlass.
"She sartainly sucks hard, sir," said Blunt, straightening his broad
back and taking out a huge plug of tobacco. "If that there mud sticks to
th' ship like it stuck to this yer mudhook, then we'll need sheer-legs
to raise her, Cap'n."
"Saw a pile o' empty oil drums behind the stockade," rumbled Jerry
Rolfe, avoiding the skipper's eye as if expecting to hear some scathing
comment on the ship's situation.
"How many?" Bill Blunt demanded, without waiting for Barry to speak. "Be
they big uns? Is ther' plenty of 'em? Holy Sailor! Beg pardon, Cap'n,
but them's what we want, ain't they, now?"
"What can you do with them, Blunt? You'd need a thousand to raise the
_Barang_ a foot. And how will you fasten them? Can't get lines under the
keel."
"Beg pardon, sir, fer a-shovin' in me oar," returned Bill, with a
grotesque tug at his forelock. "I seen som'at o' the sort done once,
though, an' if so be as you ses so, I'll do me best, sir."
"Oh, go ahead, Blunt. Go right ahead. I suppose whatever you do won't
put her in any worse a pickle. No doubt she'll come up herself when the
holes are plugged and the pumps get going again."
They pulled aboard the _Barang_, and while the boats were sent ashore to
bring down all the empty drums, Bill Blunt assumed a comical air of
study and thought out his plan. He first asked about the holes and what
had been done with them. By this time the tide had risen a foot, and the
plugs were almost ready to be driven in. Barry watched the old fellow
with a grin, and when Bill began to count laboriously on his gnarled
fingers, stepping from the bulwarks to the hatch and back again, peering
over the side and down the hold, the skipper said with mock apology:
"I suppose you're wondering why we're going to drive in the plugs from
inside, hey?"
"No, sir. I never wonders at what my skipper does. It's allus right.
That's what you be skipper fer, I take it. No, sir. I sees as it ain't
easy to drive plugs into holes as you can't reach, and them holes seems
to be away below the mud outside. Course, some clever sharks as I knows
on might say as you was wrong, and that the water outside 'ud drive them
plugs back into the belly o' the wessel. But 'tain't so. No, sir." The
ancient mariner maintained his bearlike pacing to and from the hatch,
and his speech was astonishingly longwinded for him; still he kept on
chattering, and presently Barry began to listen with real interest, and
Little and Gordon, waiting for the plugs, stared at the sailor in awed
admiration.
"No, sir," went on Bill, "them plugs has to be druv from inside; an'
makin' free, genelmen, I'd make 'em twice as long as them you have
ready."
"Twice as long?" snorted Barry. "D' you mean these are all useless?"
"P'raps not quite useless, Cap'n, but they ain't no blessed good, an' I
bet my head on that. See, if you drives all them plugs well through her,
and they sticks out good an' proper outside, it ain't so hard to grope
around under the mud an' grab a holt on 'em. Then 'tain't very hard,
genelmen, to paddle away a bit o' mud about each bunch o' plugs, an'
when that's done, 'tis about all done. I'll lash a wire to them long
plugs, and stretch her right along th' ship. That keeps them plugs in,
don't it? an' it's some'at to hang short lines to, ain't it? Werry well
then; say we has a hundred or two hundred short lines bent on to that
wire, genelmen, an' on each short line is a hempty drum, bunged up
tight--"
"And at dead low water next tide we fasten those drums down short, the
tide 'll help raise her, hey?" finished Barry, persuaded that it might
be done. "But how about the other side?"
"She don't matter, sir," the old fellow asserted. "We got plenty o' time
afore next tide. Plenty o' time to cut fresh plugs an' git lines ready.
Then when tide rises again, them drums 'll roll her over if they won't
lift her. Ain't it easy then to get at them leaks? Better'n layin' her
ashore somewheres fer caulking, if yuh don't know this yer river very
well."
Barry needed but one minute to see how infinitely better was the old
sailor's plan than the one he had formed himself. Merely to raise the
vessel and then to lay her on the alongshore flats to stop the leaks,
left a serious loophole for the swift escape of the schooner; but the
simple scheme of Bill Blunt left the _Barang_ in her blockading position
until she was fit to move anywhere under her own sail power.
The river rose rapidly after half-tide, and it had reached full height
by the time the fresh plugs were ready and the wire and short lines
prepared. Evening fell, too, before the stream turned again, and the
hands rested against the time when Gordon and Little could get down to
driving in the plugs.
Then the work was resumed with feverish haste, for much small detail in
the dim light took plenty of time. The old brigantine rang and rumbled
to the thumps of hammers below, sometimes ringing clearly until the
hammers struck beneath the water, then sounding dull and soggy as iron
met wet wood. Over the side Blunt hung on to a line and felt for the
outer ends of the plugs with his bare prehensile toes; then, lowering
himself still more, he paddled industriously in the liquid mud until he
had cleared a space around one bunch of plugs. Afterwards it was simply
a matter of setting the crew to work right along the line, and long
before the river reached its lowest level again, nimble fingers had
firmly seized a strong wire rope to the long plugs stretching along more
than a third of the ship's length.
Then came low water, and every man in the ship except Gordon and
Little--too exhausted from their own submerged labors to be of much use
for a while--went to work fastening the tight empty drums to the wire by
their short lines, until the ship's side rumbled to the bobbing of the
waters like an immense tom-tom.
"All right here, sir," reported Blunt from forward. "All right aft,"
echoed the mate, and Barry ordered all hands aboard.
"Now pump her!" he cried, and the muggy air of the night throbbed to the
clank of the brakes.
The decks gushed with water that became more and more plain mud as the
water lowered in the hold; the sounding rods showed the decrease inside
to have at last overcome the outside rise; still Barry, looking
anxiously overboard, saw no sign of the vessel rising herself. That mud
held like Fate. Jerry Rolfe remained forward, in readiness to drive his
watch to making sail or anchoring, should the ship actually float beyond
expectations; Bill Blunt hung over the rail beside the skipper, and
Little and Gordon joined them in silent wonder, neither of them quite
clear about the results of this queer undertaking.
"Say, Barry," whispered Little, unable to keep quiet any longer, "if she
rises as you expect, won't she float entirely? What's the necessity of
all this drum business? The leaks are plugged, and she either floats or
she don't, so far as I can see."
"Went up under sail on top o' high water, sir; slid through mud as is
hardening like glue, an' she ain't got drift enough to suck clear,"
replied Blunt, taking the answer out of Barry's mouth. He had seen the
skipper's increasing doubts and felt the need of speech to ease his own
impatience. "If she rolls up wi' them drums, genelmen, she'll bust a
hole fer herself, d' ye see?"
Pop!--Boom!
"There's a drum bust loose!" cried Rolfe from the foredeck.
The increasing strain had broken a small line, and the released drum
popped to the surface, letting its fellows in the bunch come together
under water with a hollow crash.
"Can't do anything but hold on," growled Barry, all but convinced that
every drum would burst loose before that horrible mud let go. And so
they watched, every eye, and still the pumps clanged and clattered;
still their feet were sluiced with out-gushing liquid that was now
merely slime. And then the first pump sucked--sucked hoarsely and
throatily--and another, and another--yet the mud clung tenaciously to
the vessel's keel and bilges.
"She rises! Th' bloomin' ol' lady rises!" roared Blunt, and Barry stared
at him in disgust. No other ears had heard, no other eyes had seen, the
signs that the old seaman had sensed above the sucking of the pumps.
"She rises, I tell ye!"
Then from the swirling water alongside, rising swiftly as the tide made,
came a long, hollow sound like a Gargantuan boot being tugged out of a
morass. The _Barang_ moved, shivered, and heeled slightly; then came one
tremendous, prolonged sucking sound, and she rolled lazily over until
the drums floated high on the surface and rattled together like drums of
victory.
"Guy out the booms to keep her down!" shouted Barry; "Rolfe! shift
everything heavy over to that side, too. You, Blunt, get a boat away and
carry out a kedge astern. When you're through, set a watch on deck and
let the hands turn in. We can fix the leaks in a couple of hours in
daylight at low water again. Thanks, Blunt! You're one real sailor,
anyway."