E get up a jury mainmast, easy enough," said Captain Swarth, as he glanced around at his shattered deck; "but how'll we keep it up? Both main channels shot away, and not a ring-bolt, cleat, bitt, or cavil left abaft the mainmast. What d'ye make of it, Yank?"
Yank Tate, the carpenter, an expert in makeshifts, and the most valuable man in that pirate crew, answered, slowly:
"I've been thinkin', capt'n—thinkin' hard. If I had tools I could work, for we have the material; but a big round shot's gone clean through my tool-chest, and I can't find anything but the broad-axe and the saw. We'll have to stay the mainmast aft by a cat-stay, and forward by two to the 'midship moorin' bitts; then rig a leg-o'-mutton on the main, for we can't sling a gaff."
"But what'll we set up the cat-stay to?" asked Angel Todd, the mate, his long and solemn face more solemn than usual at the problem. "There's nothing intact but the wheel and binnacle, and they won't stand the strain."
"Pass a rope around under the stern," answered Yank, "long enough to clear the wheel and binnacle and set it up to that."
"Right," said the captain. "Yank, you're a genius. Get to work, Angel."
"How'll we splice wire rope?" asked the mate. "She's wire-rigged everywhere. I never spliced it—never saw it before."
"Nor I," said Swarth, "nor heard of it; but it can be spliced; it's got to be."
They were taking stock after the running fight. Five miles to the north, rolling heavily in the trough with all canvas furled, lay the English war-brig that had chased them. It had been a stern chase and a long one, dead before the wind, during which Swarth, unwilling to luff and lose headway, had held his fire but for an occasional shot from a small stern gun, and had watched his craft being slowly disintegrated by the well-aimed fire of the Englishman. The after part had suffered most; the taffrail and the quarter rails to nearly amidships were ripped and shattered, while the cabin resembled nothing so much as a pile of kindling-wood; the main channels were gone, and with no support from the rigging a solid shot imbedded in the mainmast just above the deck had been enough to send it crashing down forward, springing the fore lower and topsail yards as it met them, and breaking squarely in two just below the crosstrees as it struck the rail. Then, when the submerging canvas pulled the two fragments overboard, Swarth might have given up. But the pursuing war-craft did not bear away after firing this shot; on the contrary, she luffed still farther, and as she rolled in the trough of the sea her shaking canvas began to come in, while smoke arose from amidships. So, surmising that she was suffering from internal disorder, he went on, dragging the fallen spars in his wake.
She was a brigantine, acquired by Swarth in the usual manner, and, as Angel had said, wire-rigged everywhere—one of the experiments that ship-builders are ever ready to turn out with each new invention. Not only were shrouds, stays, and backstays of this newly devised wire rope, but also the running-gear—halyards, braces, lifts, sheets, and tacks—in all its turnings and doublings down to the last part for hauling and belaying, was of the refractory material; and not only was it wire rope, but steel-wire rope that, when slackened, curled into the spiral of the original coil. In all her maze of cordage there was not a piece of hemp or manila larger than a halter, nor longer than twenty-five fathoms—about the length of the fore brace.
Splicing wire—like chemistry and materia medica—is an experimental science. As Swarth had declared, it can be done by men who have spliced soft rope; but not at the first attempt. Those very able able-seamen of that crew got the heavy wreck of the mainmast aboard with but little trouble, trimmed it, and disconnected the topmast. They sent down the fore royal-yard, sawed it lengthwise into battens to mend the damaged lower and topsail yards, and used up most of the soft royal running-gear in the lashing thereof. With the lighter main topmast for a derrick, they up-ended the shortened mainmast, and lashed the new heel to the stump with more of the hemp and manila; then, with the urgent necessity of properly securing this jury mainmast, they found themselves confronted with the problem of wire-splicing.