The Secret of the Reef Part 24

"That's so," agreed Moran, pulling off his pilot coat. "I'm going down."

There was a raw wind, the tide ran strong, and the water was chilled by the Polar ice; but Moran hurriedly stripped off his damp clothes and stood a moment, a finely poised figure that gleamed sharply white against gray rocks and slaty water. Then he plunged, and the others waited, watching the ripple of the tide when the sea closed over him.

Some moments pa.s.sed before his head broke the surface farther off than they expected. Jimmy pulled toward him, and after a scramble, which nearly upset the craft, he got on board and struggled into his clothes.

Then he spoke.

"She's there, but so far as I can see, she's canted well over with her bilge deep in the sand."

Jimmy and Bethune were filled with keen relief. They might have increased trouble in reaching the strong-room, but it was something to know that the wreck had not gone to pieces in their absence.

Jimmy picked up the end of the rope and tied on a buoy. Then he pulled back to the sloop, where Bethune cooked a somewhat extravagant supper.

CHAPTER XVII-THE STRONG-ROOM

When Jimmy went on deck the next morning, fog hung heavily about the land and the slate-green sea ran with a sluggish heave out of belts of vapor. The air felt unusually sharp and the furled mainsail glistened with rime. This was disturbing, because they must finish their work, or abandon it, before winter set in; but Jimmy reflected that it was some weeks too soon for a severe cold snap. While he watched the smoke from the stove funnel rise straight up in a faint blue line, he heard a splash of oars and Bethune appeared in the dory.

"I took the water breaker off before you were up," he said as he came alongside. "There was ice on the pool. It struck me as a warning that we had better lose no time."

"That's obvious," returned Jimmy. "Hand me up the breaker. We'll get the pumps rigged first thing."

Breakfast was hurried. The weather was favorable for work, and they could not expect it to continue so. In an hour the sloop had been warped close to the wreck and Jimmy put on the diving dress. He was surprised to feel the half-instinctive repugnance from going down which he thought he had got rid of; but this could not be allowed to influence him, and he resolutely descended the ladder. In a few minutes he reached the wreck, and found one bilge deeply embedded; but the opposite side was lifted up, and a broad strip of planking had been torn away. Jimmy could see some distance into the interior, and his lamp showed that the stream had washed out part of the sand which had barred their way to the bulkhead cutting off the strong-room. This had been strained by the working of the wreck, and it seemed possible to wrench the beams loose.

He attacked the nearest with his shovel, using force when he found a purchase, but the timber proved to be firmly mortised in. He lost count of time as he struggled to prize it out, and did not stop until he grew distressed from the pressure. His heart was beating hard and his breath difficult to get, but the beam still defied him. Making his way out of the hold, he stumbled forward toward the ladder; and when his comrades removed his helmet on board the sloop, he sat still for a few moments to recover. It was inexpressibly refreshing to breathe the keen, natural air. At last he explained what he had found below, and added:

"My suggestion is that we bore out an opening for the saw; then we could cut the stanchion through and prize the cross-timbers off."

"The trouble is that we haven't a big auger," Bethune objected. "You often run up against a difficulty of the kind when you're using tools: the thing you want the most is the one you haven't got."

"Mortise-chisel might do," said Moran. "How thick's the timber?"

"Three or four inches. By its toughness I imagine it's oak or hackmatack."

"Then, there's a big job ahead," grumbled Bethune; "and my experience is that as soon as you drive a chisel into old work you come upon a spike.

Unfortunately, we haven't a grindstone."

"Quit your pessimism and find the chisel!" snapped Moran. "I'm going down."

They watched the bubbles that marked his progress rise to the surface in a wavy line and then stop and break in a fixed patch. Rather sooner than they expected the bubbles moved back; and Moran looked crestfallen when they took off his diving dress.

"Did you cut out much stuff?" Bethune asked.

"No," said Moran, holding up the chisel; "this is what I did. Came across a blamed big spike at the second cut."

Bethune giggled. Even Jimmy grinned. There was a deep notch in the edge of the tool.

"Your philosophy isn't much good," Moran said grumpily. "It helps you to prophesy troubles, but not to avoid them. We'll have to spend some time in rubbing that nick out."

"I'll try the engineer's cold-chisel," Bethune replied. "With good luck, I might cut the spike."

He took the tool and an ordinary carpenter's chisel down with him; and the edge of the chisel was broken when he returned.

"I've cut the spike, and dug out about an inch of the wood," he reported. "Why are you frowning, Jimmy?"

"It looks as if we may spend a week over that timber. These confounded preliminaries sicken me!"

"They're common." Bethune launched off into his philosophy. "If you undertake anything that's not quite usual, half your labor consists in clearing the ground; when you get at the job itself, it often doesn't amount to much."

"Chuck it!" Moran interrupted. "Jimmy, it's your turn."

Jimmy stayed below as long as he could stand it, hacking savagely with broken chisels at the hard wood, and sc.r.a.ping out the fragments with bruised fingers; then he came up and Moran took his place. It was trying work, and grew no easier when, by persistent effort, they made an opening for the saw. The tool had to be driven horizontally at an awkward height from the sand, and the position tired their wrists and arms. Still, the weather was propitious, which was seldom the case, and they toiled on, until exhaustion stopped them when it was getting dark.

Then Moran sent Bethune ash.o.r.e to look for stones with a cutting grit, and they sat in the cabin patiently rubbing down the nicked tools, while the deck above them grew white with frost.

It cost them two days to break the beam, and on the evening they succeeded there was a sharp drop in the temperature.

Jimmy was cooking supper when Moran called him up on deck and pointed seaward.

"See that?" he said. "Seems to me we've got notice to quit."

Searching the western horizon, where the sea cut in an indigo streak against a dull red glow, Jimmy made out a faintly glimmering patch of white. Taking up the gla.s.ses, he saw that it was low and ragged, and fringed on its windward edge by leaping surf. This showed it was of some depth in the water, and he recognized it as a floe of thick northern ice.

"Yes," he answered gravely; "we'll have to hurry now."

They spent the next week attacking the bulkhead. Jimmy thought it would have resisted them only that it had obviously been built in haste and here and there the strengthening irons had wrenched away through the working of the hull. They lost no time, but the work was heavy, and tried them hard.

It was late in the afternoon, and blowing fresh enough to make diving risky, when Jimmy prepared to go down for what he hoped would be the last attempt; but stopping a few moments he looked anxiously about. Gray fog streamed up from seaward in ragged wisps, and the long swell had broken into short, white-topped combers, over which the sloop plunged with spray-swept bows, straining hard at her cables as the flood tide ran past.

"We might hold on for another hour," Bethune said hopefully; but breaking off he pointed out to sea. "That settles it," he added. "If it's any way possible, we must cut the bulkhead to-night."

A tall, glimmering shape crept out of the fog about a mile away. It was irregular in outline, and looked like a detached crag, except that it shone with a strange ghostly brightness against the leaden haze. It came on, sliding smoothly forward with the tide, another ma.s.s which was smaller and lower rocking in its wake; and then a third crept into sight behind. The men gazed at them with anxious faces; then Jimmy held out his hand for the helmet.

"They'll ground before they reach us, but the sooner I get to work the better," he said.

A bent iron plate hung from a tottering beam when he crawled up to the after end of the hold, and he savagely tried to wrench it out with a bar. The effort taxed his strength, but when he felt that he could keep it up no longer the timber yielded, and he fell forward into the gap. It cost him some trouble to recover his balance, and while he crouched on hands and knees, the disturbed water pulsed heavily into the dark hole.

Lifting his lamp, he saw that the floor was deep in sand; and out of the sand two wooden boxes projected. He found that he could not drag them clear, and it seemed impossible to remove them without some tackle, but in groping about he came upon a bag. It was made of common canvas, and had been heavily sealed, though part of the wax had broken away, but on lifting it Jimmy found the material strong enough to hold its contents.

He sat still for a moment or two, his heart beating with exultant excitement. The sand was much deeper at the other side of the small, slanted room. He could not tell what lay beneath it; but he could see two boxes, and he held a heavy bag. Gold was worth about twenty dollars an ounce, and value to a large amount would go into a small compa.s.s. It looked as if wealth were within his grasp.

The effects of the continued pressure made themselves felt, and Jimmy hastily picked his way out of the hold. He had some trouble in getting up the ladder, which swung to and fro, and when he reached the deck he saw Moran busy forward, shortening cable. Bethune released him from his canvas dress, and lifted the bag.

"You got in?" he cried.

"Yes; here's a bag of gold. I saw two boxes, and expect there are others in the sand."

Bethune clenched his hand tight.