hours if
the wind held.

They went down and had breakfast, and after the meal Ginnell, going to
the locker where he had stowed the wrecking tools, fetched them out and
laid them on deck. There were two crow-bars and a jemmy, not to
mention a flogging hammer, a rip saw, some monstrous big chisels and a
shipwright's mallet. They looked like a collection of burglar's
implements from the land of Brobdingnag.

"There you are," said Ginnell. "You never know what you may want on a
job like this, with bulkheads, maybe, to be cut through and chests
broke open; get a spare sail, Misther Harman, and rowl the lot up in it
so's they'll be aisier for thransport."

He was excited, and the Irish in him came out when he was like that;
also, as the most knowledgeable man in the business, he was taking the
lead. You never could have fancied from his cheerful manner and his
appearance of boss that Blood was the real master of the situation, or
that Blood, only a few days ago, had nearly pounded the life out of
him, captured his revolver, and taken possession of the _Heart of
Ireland_.

The schooner carried a whale-boat, and this was now got in readiness
for lowering, with provisions and water for the landing-party, and when
that was done the island, now only four miles distant, showed up fine,
a sheer splinter of volcanic rock standing up from the sea and creamed
about with foam.

Not a sign of a wreck was to be seen, though Ginnell's glasses were
powerful enough to show up every detail from the rock fissures to the
roosting gulls.

Gloom fell upon the party, with the exception of Harman.

"It'll be on the other side if it's there at all," said he. "She'd
have been coming up from the s'uthard, and if the gale was behind her
it would have taken her right on to the rocks; she couldn't be on this
side, anyhow, because why?--there's nuthin' to hold her. It's a mile
deep water off them cliffs, but on the other side it shoals gradual
from tide marks to ten fathoms water, which holds for a quarter of a
mile--keep her as she is, you could scrape them cliffs with a
battleship without danger of groundin'."

After a minute or two, he took the wheel himself and steered her whilst
the fellows stood by the halyards ready to let go at a moment's notice.

It was an impressive place, this north side of the island of San Juan;
the heavy swell came up smacking right on to the sheer cliff wall,
jetting green water and foam yards high to the