s of the stranded hulk seem braced. Stirred
by the new life on her, the old ship may well forget she has no stern
and only part a bottom. Already the decks, gaunt and red-rusted as they
are, take on a cheering look of service and animation. The seamen in the
rigging and workmen crowded round the hatchways might be the dockers
boarded for a day's work on the loading, and only the thunder of the
motors and crash of the sluicing torrent remain foreign to a normal
ship-day.

The sun has gone west when the tidal current surging past shows a change
in direction. We throw sightly flotsam overboard and note the drift that
takes the refuse astern. No longer the green slimy plates of the hull
show above water, the tide has lapped their sea-growth and ripples high
on a cleaner surface. With high water approaching we draw near the point
of balance in buoyancy, and the salving tenders tighten up headfasts and
stern ropes in readiness for a slip or drag. The sea-tug that has till
now been a quiet partner in operations, smokes up and backs in astern to
pass a hawser to the wreck. She drops away with a good scope, and lies
handy to tow at orders.

Tirelessly, droning and throbbing with insistent monotony, the pumps
continue their labour and draw the weight of water that holds the wreck
down. At number three hold the flood below is no longer a still and
placid well. The penned and mastered water seethes and whirls in
impotent fury at the suction that draws and churns only to expel. Some
solid matter, seaweed perhaps, has drifted to the leak and stems a
volume of the incoming water; there seems a prospect that a single pump
may keep the level.

In somewhat tense expectancy, we await a crisis in the operations. There
is a feeling that all these masterly movements should lead to a
spectacular resurrection--a stir and tremor in the frame of her,
reviving sea-throes, a lurch, a list, a mighty heave, and a staggering
relaunch to the deeps.

Precise and businesslike, modern salvage avoids such a flourishing end
to their labours. As skilful surgeons, they object strongly to
excitement. Their frail and tortured sea-patients can rarely stand more
than gentle suasion. As surely as the tide they work by, the factors of
weight and displacement and trim have been figured and calculated. . . .
The commander draws our attention to a quiet and steady rise in the
bows, the knightheads perceptibly edging nearer to a wisp of standing
cloud. Without a