gine. That rose easily enough,
and was hauled through the skylight and on to the deck, many hands
assisting the doubtful steam. Then came the tug of war, for it was
necessary to get to the piston and the jammed piston-rod. They removed
two of the piston junk-ring studs, screwed in two strong iron eye-bolts
by way of handles, doubled the wire-rope, and set half a dozen men to
smite with an extemporised battering-ram at the end of the piston-rod,
where it peered through the piston, while the donkey-engine hauled
upwards on the piston itself. After four hours of this furious work, the
piston-rod suddenly slipped, and the piston rose with a jerk, knocking
one or two men over into the engine-room. But when Mr. Wardrop declared
that the piston had not split, they cheered, and thought nothing of
their wounds; and the donkey-engine was hastily stopped; its boiler was
nothing to tamper with.

And day by day their supplies reached them by boat. The skipper humbled
himself once more before the Governor, and as a concession had leave to
get drinking-water from the Malay boat-builder on the quay. It was not
good drinking-water, but the Malay was anxious to supply anything in his
power, if he were paid for it.

Now when the jaws of the forward engine stood, as it were, stripped and
empty, they began to wedge up the shores of the cylinder itself. That
work alone filled the better part of three days--warm and sticky days,
when the hands slipped and sweat ran into the eyes. When the last
wedge was hammered home there was no longer an ounce of weight on the
supporting-columns; and Mr. Wardrop rummaged the ship for boiler-plate
three-quarters of an inch thick, where he could find it. There was not
much available, but what there was was more than beaten gold to him. In
one desperate forenoon the entire crew, naked and lean, haled back,
more or less into place, the starboard supporting-column, which, as you
remember, was cracked clean through. Mr. Wardrop found them asleep where
they had finished the work, and gave them a day's rest, smiling upon
them as a father while he drew chalk-marks about the cracks. They woke
to new and more trying labour; for over each one of those cracks a plate
of three-quarter-inch boiler-iron was to be worked hot, the rivet-holes
being drilled by hand. All that time they were fed on fruits, chiefly
bananas, with some sago.

Those were the days when men swooned over the ratchet-drill and the
hand-forge, and wh