. Beyond that, I
reckon the ship's afloat, for at that p'int there's eighteen foot of
water, gradually deepenin' to twenty-two foot under the starn-post. I
don't reckon that we're so very hard and fast on the mud, hows'ever; for
there's a good seventeen foot o' water under the bows; and I noticed,
when we'd finished loadin' her t'other day, that she only drawed
seventeen foot six for'ard."

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

THE REEF.

"That is good news," I remarked, when Saunders had completed his report;
"for, short-handed though we are, I think it may be possible for us to
get the ship afloat again. Then if, as you, Gurney, have suggested,
there happens to be a channel carrying depth enough to float us, we may
yet hope to find our way into open water once more. Let us pray,
however, that the channel--if such exists--does not trend to windward,
unless, of course, it happens to be wide enough to work the ship in.
And now, I think our first job must be to clew up and furl our canvas,
otherwise, when the breeze comes--as come it may at any moment--we shall
drive ashore in grim earnest, and perhaps never get afloat again."

My two companions fully agreed with me; and accordingly, the halyards
having already been let go, and the yards lowered to the caps, we let go
the sheets and manned the clewlines and buntlines, first of the main and
then of the fore topsail. Then we let go the fore topmast staysail
halyards and hauled down the sail; finally laying out and securing it
before going aloft to furl the topsails, which we tackled one at a time.

The next thing to be thought about was how to provide for the safety of
the ship when the breeze should come again, as come it soon must. As
the ship then lay she was heading almost exactly due east; and if the
wind should happen to come away out from that quarter--which seemed to
be its prevailing direction thereabout--I thought it not improbable that
we might blow off the mudbank and go ashore again on the lee side of the
lake, quite possibly in a very much worse position than that which we
then occupied. Gurney and Saunders were quite of my opinion; and after
talking the matter over for a while, we decided to get the stream anchor
over the bows, in place of the one left behind at the island, bend a
hawser to it, and have it all ready to let go at any moment. This we
did without any difficulty, the anchor in question being of a weight not
too great for the three of us to handle.