‘That’s to be found out,’ answered Cutbill. ‘Smite me, Mr. Monson, sir, if the look-out of exploring of her ain’t good enough to stop a man from being in a hurry to get away from here.’ ‘Will not one of the sailors climb on board,’ said Lady Monson, ‘that we may know the state of her decks? We shall require a shelter to-night if a ship does not come to-day and take us off,’ and she sent her black eyes flashing over the sea-line as she spoke, but there was nothing to be seen. ‘How is a man to get aboard?’ exclaimed Dowling; ‘there’s nought to catch hold of, and sailors ain’t flies.’ ‘Pile casks one on top of another,’ said I, ‘and then make a pick-a-back, the lightest hand last. I’ll lend my shoulders.’ Finn shook his head. ‘No need to risk our necks, sir. The bows are the lowest part. Nothen’s wanted but a coil of rope. Dowling, you look about the freshest of us, my lad. Step down where the raffle is, will ’ee, and bring along a length of the gear there.’ The fellow trudged to the beach very willingly. Had he been a merchant sailor pure and simple, one might have looked in vain under such conditions for hearty obedience. Mercantile Jack when shipwrecked has a habit of viewing himself as a man freed from all restraint, and instantly privileged by misery to grow mutinous and in all senses obnoxious. But the instincts of the yachtsman come very near to those of the man-of-war’s-man; and indeed, for the matter of that, I would rather be cast away with a crew of men who knew nothing of seafaring outside yachting than with a body of blue-jackets--I mean as regards the promise of respectful behaviour. Presently Dowling returned with a line coiled over his shoulder. In truth, rope enough to rig a mast with had come ashore with the yards, gaffs, and booms of the yacht, and the sailor had had nothing to do but to clear away as much line as he wanted and bring it to us. Cutbill took the stuff from him and coiled it down afresh over his fingers as though he were about to heave the lead, then nicely calculating distance and height with his eye he sent the fakes flying lasso fashion sheer over the head of the huge, glittering, fossilised structure where the incrustation forked out in a manner to suggest the existence of what the ancient mariner termed a ‘beak,’ and the end was caught by Dowling, who had stepped round the bows of the craft to receive it. ‘Now up you go, my lad,’ shouted Cutbill, and the sailor, who was of a light figure, mounted as nimbly as a monkey, hand over hand; three of us holding on to the rope t’other side to secure it for him. He gained the deck and looked about him with an air of stupid wonder. ‘Why, it’s a plantation!’ he shouted; ‘young cork-trees a-sprouting and flowers as big as targets! vegetables right fore and aft, and a dead grampus under the break of the poop!’ ‘Avast!’ bawled Cutbill, ‘tarn to and see if the stump of that there foremast is sound.’