ill more, he paddled industriously in the liquid mud until he
had cleared a space around one bunch of plugs. Afterwards it was simply
a matter of setting the crew to work right along the line, and long
before the river reached its lowest level again, nimble fingers had
firmly seized a strong wire rope to the long plugs stretching along more
than a third of the ship's length.

Then came low water, and every man in the ship except Gordon and
Little--too exhausted from their own submerged labors to be of much use
for a while--went to work fastening the tight empty drums to the wire by
their short lines, until the ship's side rumbled to the bobbing of the
waters like an immense tom-tom.

"All right here, sir," reported Blunt from forward. "All right aft,"
echoed the mate, and Barry ordered all hands aboard.

"Now pump her!" he cried, and the muggy air of the night throbbed to the
clank of the brakes.

The decks gushed with water that became more and more plain mud as the
water lowered in the hold; the sounding rods showed the decrease inside
to have at last overcome the outside rise; still Barry, looking
anxiously overboard, saw no sign of the vessel rising herself. That mud
held like Fate. Jerry Rolfe remained forward, in readiness to drive his
watch to making sail or anchoring, should the ship actually float beyond
expectations; Bill Blunt hung over the rail beside the skipper, and
Little and Gordon joined them in silent wonder, neither of them quite
clear about the results of this queer undertaking.

"Say, Barry," whispered Little, unable to keep quiet any longer, "if she
rises as you expect, won't she float entirely? What's the necessity of
all this drum business? The leaks are plugged, and she either floats or
she don't, so far as I can see."

"Went up under sail on top o' high water, sir; slid through mud as is
hardening like glue, an' she ain't got drift enough to suck clear,"
replied Blunt, taking the answer out of Barry's mouth. He had seen the
skipper's increasing doubts and felt the need of speech to ease his own
impatience. "If she rolls up wi' them drums, genelmen, she'll bust a
hole fer herself, d' ye see?"

Pop!--Boom!

"There's a drum bust loose!" cried Rolfe from the foredeck.

The increasing strain had broken a small line, and the released drum
popped to the surface, letting its fellows in the bunch come together
under water with a hollow crash.

"Can't do anything but hold on," growled Barry,