The sun was now in the west, his light a rich crimson and the sea a sheet of molten gold polished as quicksilver under him. The galleon’s shadow lay broad on her port side, and in it we sprawled with scarlet faces and dripping brows. ‘No chance of being picked up in such weather as this, sir,’ said Finn, who had worked as hard as any of us and seemed the better for his labours, though I observed that his breath was caught at times as if by a spasm or shooting pain in the side. ‘We must have patience,’ said I, ‘but at the worst ’tis a tolerably comfortable shipwreck, Finn. We are well stocked, and there’s a deal more yet to be had if the sea will keep quiet. We’re not ashore upon the Greenland coast, all ice ahead of us and all famine astern.’ ‘No, thank the Lord,’ quoth Cutbill; ‘it’s a bad shipwreck when a man daresn’t finger his nose for fear of bringing it away from his face. Better too much sun, says I, than none at all.’ ‘And then again,’ said I, with a glance up at the marvellous, shell-encrusted conformation that towered with swelling bilge over our heads, ‘here’s as good a house as one needs to live in till something heaves in view.’ ‘I’m for scuttling her at once, capt’n,’ cried Head; ‘she’ll hold a vast o’ water, and the sooner she’s holed the sooner she’ll be empty. Who’s to tell what’s inside of her?’ Cutbill ran his eyes thirstily over the huge fossil. ‘She was a lump of a craft for her day,’ said he, ‘and when wessels of her size put to sea they was commonly nearly all rich ships, so I’ve heerd.’ ‘Head, you’re right,’ cried Finn. ‘Ye shall be the first to spike her--if ’ee can. On deck there!’ ‘Hillo!’ answered Dowling, putting his purple, whiskered face over the line of shells. ‘Send down the augers and a chopper out of the carpenter’s chest.’ ‘Ay, ay, sir,’ he answered, and in a few moments down came the tools. ‘Before you make a start,’ said I, ‘hoist me aboard, will you?’ I planted myself in the chair, was cleverly run up, got hold of Dowling’s hand, and stepped on to the deck.