.

The tapping quickly showed him where the upright beams were located on
the other side of the sheathing. In his own mind he was not as sanguine
as his activity might have indicated. It was blind experiment--he
could not estimate the obstacles which were ahead of him. But he did
understand, well enough, that if they were to escape they must do so
through the bottom of the vessel amidship; there, wallowing though she
was, there might be some freeboard. He had seen vessels floating bottom
up. Usually a section of the keel and a portion of the garboard streaks
were in sight above the sea. But there could be no escape through the
bottom of the craft above them where they stood in the cabin. He knew
that the counter and buttock must be well under water.

"Have you a full cargo belowdecks?" he asked.

"No," stated Captain Candage, hinting by his tone that he wondered what
difference that would make to them in the straits in which they were
placed.

Mayo felt a bit of fresh courage. He had been afraid that the _Polly's_
hold would be found to be stuffed full of lumber. His rising spirits
prompted a little sarcasm.

"How did it ever happen that you didn't plug the trap you set for us?"

"Couldn't get but two-thirds cargo below because the lumber was sawed so
long. Made it up by extra deck-lo'd."

"Yes, piled it all on deck so as to make her top-heavy--so as to be sure
of catching us," suggested Mayo, beginning to work his hammer and chisel
on the sheathing.

"'Tain't no such thing!" expostulated Captain Candage, missing the
irony. "Them shingles and laths is packet freight, and I couldn't put
'em below because I've got to deliver 'em this side of New York. And you
don't expect me to overhaul a whole decklo'd so as to--"

"Not now," broke in Mayo. "The Atlantic Ocean has attended to the case
of that deckload."

"My Gawd, yes!" mourned the master. "I was forgetting that we are upside
down--and that shows what a state of mind I'm in!"

Mayo had picked his spot for operations. He drove his chisel through the
sheathing as close to the cabin floor as he could. Remembering that
the schooner was upside down and that the floor was over his head, the
aperture he was starting work on would bring him nearest the bilge. When
he had chiseled a hole big enough for a start, he secured the saw from
the mate and sawed a square opening. He lifted himself up and worked his
way through the hole and found himself on lumber and out of w