The rapidity with which the work was carried out was so remarkable that by January 11, just eighteen days after the _Araby_ was wrecked, the flooded compartments were being pumped out. To the joy of the salvors the rising tide lifted the ship clear of the bottom, and clever manœuvring enabled Captain H. Pomeroy, the salvage officer, to clear the harbour entrance and haul the ship into position practically parallel with the quay. By the end of the day she had been worked some little distance up the harbour and ships could pass in and out. The falling tide let her down again in the middle of the channel, but although she still interfered with traffic the salvors had carried the work a big step forward. The hauling and the towing, however, had subjected her to a tremendous strain, as a result of which the crack across her keel began to extend up each side of her hull. This necessitated two strenuous days being spent in strengthening her, before she could again be pumped out and lifted a little farther into the harbour. Again she grounded at the fall of the tide, and once more as the tide rose she was lifted higher up the harbour. Throughout it was only possible to keep her afloat by continuous pumping, and once the pumps stopped she soon sank under the inrush of water. [Illustration: BOTH HALVES OF THE ARABY BEACHED IN BOULOGNE HARBOUR, WHERE THEY LAY FOR MANY MONTHS] During these operations the crack had been creeping higher and higher up the hull under the alternating strains to which she was subjected. The mighty steel plates were rent and wrenched open until the greatest calamity of all overtook her and she broke right in two. She just fell apart, as a sliced apple falls apart, and sank to the bottom. [Illustration: TOWING THE STERN OF THE ARABY BACK TO ENGLAND. THE SIGHT OF HALF A SHIP AFLOAT AT SEA IS SELDOM SEEN] Such a disaster would daunt most men, who would probably decide that the only thing to be done in so parlous a case was to finish the job by blowing the ends to smithereens and then to dredge up the pieces and throw them on the scrap heap. But the men tackling the case were in no wise disconcerted. If the problem had been complicated in one way, it had been simplified in another. For one thing, a ship breaking in halves required more delicate handling than one broken in halves, because the salvors would naturally try to prevent the worst from happening. Once the worst had happened, the salvors could go ahead without any thoughts of impending disaster. So, wasting no time, Captain Pomeroy brought some giant pontoons into play. Each was capable of lifting a weight of 800 tons, and by their aid, after a tremendous tussle, the two ends were lifted and beached out of the way of traffic in the inner harbour.