A STRUGGLE IN THE DARK

But Phil was up long before the hour appointed. It was not yet midnight when he got out of his bunk to get a drink of water. As he did so he stepped into water half way up to his knees.

He instantly aroused his companions.

“The boat is sinking,” was his explanation. “Get to the pumps quick.”

Then lighting a lantern he made a thorough search of the hold in the hope of finding and stopping the leaks, but it was without avail.

With two boys at each pump the water could be kept down. That fact was established by an hour’s hard work.

“But we can’t keep up that sort of thing,” said Phil. “We must stop the leaks or abandon the boat.”

He thought for a while. Then he said to Ed:—

“Get some ropes, Ed, and make them fast to the four corners of the tarpaulin. Bring each pair together about twenty feet away from the rag, and fasten them to another rope.”

“What’s your plan?” asked Irv, who was diligently pumping.

“I’m going to stretch the tarpaulin under the boat. Sailors stretch a sail that way sometimes to stop a leak.”

But this was much more easily said than done. When the tarpaulin was ready, Phil took all hands away from the pumps and, sending them to the skiffs, made an effort to force the great stiff cloth under the bow. It was a complete failure. The current was much too strong.

Then he went to the stern, where he hoped that the current would be of assistance. But that attempt also failed. The current doubled up the tarpaulin against the end of the boat, and it refused to slip under. The effort was several times repeated, but always with the same result—failure.

Finally Phil ordered all hands back to the flatboat. He went below and presently returned with a ball of twine. Unwinding its entire length and carefully coiling it on deck, he told Ed to fasten its farther end to one of the ropes attached to the tarpaulin strings.

“What are you going to do, Phil?”

“I’m going to put my swimming to some practical account. Two of you fellows get into a skiff,—yes, three of you,—and lie off the larboard side of the boat.”

As they obeyed, the boy removed his clothes and tied the twine securely around his person.

“Watch the coil, Ed,” he said to his brother, “and don’t let it foul. Give me free string from the moment I go overboard. A very little pull would drown me!”

Then, taking a lantern, Phil scanned the water on both sides of the boat carefully for drift that might be in the way. When all was ready he leaped overboard, and after an anxious wait on the part of the boys he came to the surface again on the other side of the boat. He had repeated his old feat of diving under the flatboat, but this time it was harder than ever before. The strong current helped him a little, for the flatboat, tied bow and stern, lay almost athwart it. But a deal of difficulty was created by the necessity of dragging the twine after him. Ed saw to it that no tangle should occur, but the string dragged upon the deck and over the side and again upon the bottom of the boat, so that a much longer time and far more exertion was necessary for the dive than had ever been required before. Indeed, when Phil came up he was barely clear of the gunwale and his ability to hold his breath was completely at an end. A second more and he must have inhaled water and drowned. He was for the moment too much exhausted to climb into the skiff that was waiting for him, or even to give directions to his companions.

Seeing his condition, Irv and Will leaped overboard with their clothes on, and actually lifted the boy into the skiff, pushing him over its side as if he had been a log or a limp sack of meal.

As soon as he was able to gasp he helped his comrades into the little boat, and called out:—

“Pull away on the string, boys, as fast as you can, otherwise the current will carry it out from under the boat, at one end or the other.”

They obeyed promptly and presently had the end of the rope in their grasp. Pulling upon this, they succeeded in getting the edge of the tarpaulin under the starboard side of the flatboat. But there the thing stuck, and their tugging at the rope only resulted in drawing their skiff up to the flatboat’s side. Phil quickly saw that “pulling without a purchase” was futile. He called out:—

“Row to that tree yonder, and we’ll make fast to it.”

When that was done the pulling was resumed, this time “with a purchase.” But it was of no avail. The tarpaulin was drawn halfway under the boat, but there it stuck.

After a little Phil evolved a new idea. Releasing the skiff, he rowed to the flatboat and directed Irv to go aboard. Then returning to his former position, he again made the skiff fast to the tree.

“Now, Irv,” he called out, “you and Ed go below and bring up two or three barrels of flour.”

“What for?” asked Ed.

“Never mind what for. Do it quick,” was the answer.

When the barrels of flour were on deck, Phil said:—

“Find the middle of the tarpaulin as nearly as you can, and roll a barrel of flour overboard into it.”

The thing was quickly done. The weight of the barrel of flour caused the tarpaulin to sink below the flatboat’s bottom, and it became possible to drag it under her for a further space.

“Roll another barrel overboard,” said the captain, when the tarpaulin refused to come farther. This enabled the boys to drag the sheet still farther, and finally, with the aid of a third barrel, they brought its edge ten feet beyond the gunwale.

“Now,” said Phil, “we’ve got to spill those flour barrels out of the cloth, or it won’t come up to the boat’s bottom and stop the leaks.”

How to do this was a puzzle. After studying the problem for a while, Phil directed Ed and Irv on board the flatboat, and Will and Constant in the skiff, to relax the tension on the great square of sailcloth.

“I’m going down on top of it,” he said, “to push the barrels off.”

“But when you do that, it’ll close up to the bottom of the boat and catch you in it,” said Will. “Don’t think of doing that!”

“I must,” said Phil, “we’re sinking; it’s our only chance, and I must take the risk. Let me have your big knife, Constant.”

“What are you going to do with it?” asked the boy, as he handed it to Phil.

“Cut my way out if I can, or perhaps cut a way out for the flour barrels. Good-by, boys, if I never get back. And thank you for everything.”

With that he stepped upon the tarpaulin and slid down it under the boat. Presently he came back, gasping and struggling.

“I got one barrel out,” he said. Then he waited awhile for breath, and went under again. This time he was gone so long that his comrades feared the worst, with almost no hope for a better result. But they could do nothing. Presently Phil came up, but so exhausted that he could only cling in a feeble way to the edge of the canvas. The boys dragged him into the skiff, and he lay upon its bottom for a time like one almost drowned, which indeed he was. When he had somewhat recovered, Irv called to him:—

“I’m going down next time, Phil. You shan’t brag that you’re a better water-rat than I am.”

“No, you mustn’t,” said the boy; “I’ve found out how to do the trick now. But I’ve lost your knife in the shuffle, Constant. Cast the skiff loose and let’s go aboard for another.”

The boy was so exhausted that his companions simply forbade him to make another attempt.

“You shan’t go down again,” said Irv, “and that’s all there is about it. If you’ve found out how to do the trick, as you say, save my life by explaining it to me, for I’m going down, anyhow.”

The boy was too weak to insist. So he explained:—

“Don’t go down on top of the sheet as I did. Dive under it. Find the barrels,—they’re almost exactly in the middle,—and slit the tarpaulin under them so that they can drop through. Oh, let me do it, I’m all right now.”

But Irv was overboard with a big butcher knife in his grasp, and the skiff was again securely fastened to its tree.

Irv dived three times. On coming up for the third time, he said with his irrepressible vivacity, “One, two, three times and out! Third time’s the charm, you know. I beg to announce that there’s a big slit in the tarpaulin and that the two barrels of triple X family flour are calmly reposing in the mud that underlies The Last of the Flatboats.”

“Good!” said Phil. “But we must hurry.”

And he gave rapid orders for drawing up the canvas on each side of the flatboat. Then he secured some tackle blocks and carried ropes from the two ends of the tarpaulin to the anchor windlass, and set the boys to draw it as tight as possible.

Then he went below, and found the water almost up to the level of the gunwales. That is to say, the boat proper, the part that floated all the rest, was very nearly full of water. A few inches more and the craft would have gone down like an iron pot with a hole in it.

There was hurried and anxious work at the pumps. At the end of an hour the gauge below showed that the water in the hold had been reduced by an inch or two.

“This will never do,” said the young captain. “We can’t keep on pumping like demons day and night till we get to New Orleans. We simply must find the leaks and stop them. The tarpaulin helps very greatly, but it isn’t enough.”

“But how?” asked Ed.

“First of all cast the flatboat loose and let her float,” said skipper Phil. “It’s daylight now.”

“What good will that do?” asked one.

“None, perhaps. Perhaps a great deal. It will put us into a river for one thing. We’re in about as bad a place for sinking as there could be. Maybe we shall float into a better one. Maybe we shall come to some place where the land is still out of water and let the boat sink where we can save part of the cargo. Maybe anything. Cast loose, while I study things below.”