"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."