The schooner, as she lay, upside down in the sea, was practically a
diving-bell; with that hole in her shell their safety was in jeopardy.
The girl seemed to understand the situation before the duller minds of
her father and his mates had begun to work. She frenziedly sought for
Mayo's disengaged hand and thrust some kind of fabric into it.
"It's from my petticoat," she gasped. "Can you calk with it?"
"Hand me the chisel," he entreated.
As soon as she had given the tool to him he worked his hand free from
the crack and instantly drove the fabric into the crevice, crowding it
fold by fold with the edge of the chisel.
"Hope I didn't do anything wrong, trying to be helpful," apologized Mr.
Speed.
"I'll do the rest of this job without any such help," growled the
captain.
"But what are you stopping the air for when it's rushing in to liven us
up?" asked Dolph, plaintively.
"It was rushing out, fool! Rushing out so fast that this lumber would
have flattened us against the bottom of this hull in a little while."
"I would have figgered it just t'other way," stated Mr. Speed, humbly.
"Outside air, being fresh, ought nat'rally to rush in to fill the holes
we have breathed out of this air."
Mayo was in no mood to lecture on natural phenomena. He investigated the
cut which had been made by the incautious mate and estimated, by what
his fingers told him, that the schooner's bottom planks were three
inches thick. He settled back on his haunches and gave a little thought
to the matter, and understood that he had a ticklish job ahead of him.
Those planks must be gouged around the complete square of the proposed
opening, so that the section might be driven out in one piece by a blow
from beneath. That section must give way wholly and instantly. They were
doomed if they made a half-job of it. In that pitchy blackness he had
only his fingers to guide him. That one little streak of light from the
open world without was tantalizing promise. On the other side of those
planks was God's limitless air. The poor creatures penned under that
hull were gasping and choking for want of that air. Mayo set bravely to
work, hammering at the chisel-head above him.
All were silent. They felt the initial languor of suffocation and knew
the peril which was threatening them.
"If there is anything I can do--" ventured Otie.