The men worked with right good-will, hauling away the rocks from the entrance of the cavern, until they left the passage clear. But even at high tide there was no depth of water sufficient to float the galleon, and we must needs take thought how to bring her to the sea. We soon proved, to our great joy, that she rested on sand, and we had but to dig beneath her, and to cut a channel, and with the flood tide we could haul her out. But we could not begin this work until the next low tide, when the water in the cavern, having now a free outlet, flowed away. We built a dam to prevent its return, and then, by dint of toiling steadily, some resting while the others worked, we contrived in two days to grave out a dock wherein the vessel might ride. The work was done with great quietness, for the enemy’s galleon was anchored but a few miles away, and ’twas very necessary that no sound should provoke them to come and spy what we were about. The mariners knew how much hung on their being left undisturbed until the ship could be rigged and towed out to sea, and they put a great restraint upon themselves. There was risk enough in the chance that a Spanish ship might appear off the coast. The spectacle of a dismantled hull could not fail to attract her notice, and if she should be a ship of war there was little hope that the _San Felipe_ would ever sail the sea again. To step the masts was no trifling business. The stump of the old mainmast was broken off low down and jaggedly, and ’twas a full day’s work for the most skilful of the _Elizabeth’s_ carpenters to fit the stump for the pine stem they had prepared. The mast itself was but roughly finished. It was not stripped of its bark: the time would not serve for niceties; Hilary indeed doubted whether, with the utmost expedition, we should have the vessel in navigable trim before the galleons returned. By good luck the stump of the mizzen had not been snapped off so low as the others; and a jury mast was rigged in a third of the time the mainmast had taken. The _San Felipe_ had no boats, all she had carried having been stove in during the earthquake and washed away. But a boat of some sort was needful to tow the vessel out; wherefore, while some men were scraping the hull, and others rigging the spars, the rest hastened to the woods and worked with might and main to fashion a canoe of cedar. Though we employed every minute of daylight, the men taking turns to rest in the hot hours, ’twas full ten days before the work was done. And then one afternoon, when we were lying on the cliffs basking in ease we had not known for many a day, the sentinel espied three sail low down on the horizon to the west. "Without doubt the Dons are coming back for us," cried Hilary. Then in French he asked Captain Q, with a show of deference, to give us his commands. "We will sail forth and fight them," cried the dauntless Captain.