empty the wreck, and then they set about the task of
breaking her up.

To break up a ship is, under ordinary circumstances, no very difficult
matter, but as they expected that they would be dependent almost
entirely upon the wreck for the timber necessary to the construction of
their little ship, they had to go carefully to work; and as it was all
manual labour, and they were very weak-handed, they found the task one
of no ordinary difficulty. At length, however, after nearly another
month's arduous toil, they had cut her down to the water's-edge, and
there they were obliged to leave her.

Hitherto they had not allowed themselves time to very closely
investigate the nature of the cargo which they had so laboriously
conveyed to the shore, their chief anxiety being to secure from the
wreck every scrap likely to be of the slightest use to them, before the
change of, the season and the break-up of the weather should render this
impossible. Now, however, they had leisure to give their booty a
thorough overhaul; and this was the next task to which they devoted
themselves. As, however, they were now no longer pressed for time, and
one man could easily do most of what was required to be done in that
way, it was arranged that Doctor Henderson should examine the cargo as
far as he could, and prepare a detailed list of the various goods and
articles of which it was composed; whilst Gaunt and Nicholls should
proceed in the raft on a trip of exploration round the bay, for the
purpose of discovering an outlet in the reef which the former believed
to exist, and, if such an outlet could be found, to proceed through it
and make a short trial trip to sea for the purpose of testing the
sailing qualities of the raft.

On the morning following the completion of their work of dismemberment,
therefore, these two tasks were taken in hand. Such cases and packages
as it was thought the doctor would have a difficulty in breaking open
unaided were attacked by the three men, and their contents laid bare;
and then Gaunt and Nicholls got on board the raft--which was berthed at
a short distance from the beach and made thoroughly secure by being
moored with the ship's smallest kedge--and, hoisting her huge lateen
sail, cast off from the mooring-buoy, and proceeded to execute a few
trial evolutions preparatory to the exploration of the reef. The mode
of working the raft under sail was, as has already been intimated, the
same in principle with t