However, the capstan and wind-lace
were manned with as many hands as could be spared from the pumps, and
the ship floating about twenty minutes after ten o'clock, the effort was
made, and she was heaved into deep water. It was some comfort to find
that she did not now admit more water than she had done upon the rock;
and though by the gaining of the leak upon the pumps, there was no less
than three feet nine inches water in the hold, yet the men did not
relinquish their labour, and we held the water as it were at bay; but
having now endured excessive fatigue of body and agitation of mind for
more than four-and-twenty hours, and having but little hope of
succeeding at last, they began to flag: None of them could work at the
pump more than five or six minutes together, and then, being totally
exhausted, they threw themselves down upon the deck, though a stream of
water was running over it from the pumps between three and four inches
deep; when those who succeeded them had worked their spell, and were
exhausted in their turn, they threw themselves down in the same manner,
and the others started up again, and renewed their labour; thus
relieving each other till an accident was very near putting an end to
their efforts at once. The planking which lines the inside of the ship's
bottom is called the ceiling, and between this and the outside planking
there is a space of about eighteen inches: The man who till this time
had attended the well to take the depth of water, had taken it only to
the ceiling, and gave the measure accordingly; but he being now
relieved, the person who came in his stead reckoned the depth to the
outside planking, by which it appeared in a few minutes to have gained
upon the pumps eighteen inches, the difference between the planking
without and within. Upon this even the bravest was upon the point of
giving up his labour with his hope, and in a few minutes every thing
would have been involved in all the confusion of despair. But this
accident, however dreadful in its first consequences, was eventually the
cause of our preservation. The mistake was soon detected, and the sudden
joy which every man felt upon finding his situation better than his
fears had suggested, operated like a charm, and seemed to possess him
with a strong belief that scarcely any real danger remained. New
confidence and new hope, however founded, inspired new vigour; and
though our state was the same as when the men first began to slack