174 MYSTIC ISLES 



would be best to start the steam pump. The smoke- 

 stack and the rest of the steam fittings were under the 

 fo'c's'le head. It took a long time to get them out, and 

 then the steam pump would not work. The water 

 gained on us all the time now, and the captain ordered 

 us to throw the deck-load overboard. We were nearly- 

 dead, we were so tired and sleepy and sore. This morn- 

 ing, the cook served cofi'ee and bread when daylight 

 came at six o'clock. That was the last bit of food or 

 drink we had on the El Dorado. 



"The taldng off of the great chain was a murderous 

 job. When we loosened it, the huge seas would sweep 

 over the logs and us while we tried to get them over- 

 board. It was touch and go. We had to use capstan- 

 bars to pry the big logs over and over. We tried to 

 push them with the rolling of the ship. One wave 

 would carry a mass of the logs away, and the next wave 

 would bring them back, crashing into the vessel, catch- 

 ing in the rigging, and nearly pulling it down, and the 

 masts with it. Dodging those big logs was awful work, 

 and if you were hit by one, you were gone. They would 

 come dancing over the side on the tops of the waves and 

 be left on the very spot from which we had lifted them 

 overboard. The old man should have thrown the deck- 

 load over two days before. The water now grew deeper 

 all the time, and the ship wallowed like a waterlogged 

 raft. The fo'c's'le was full of water. The El Dorado 

 was drowning with us aboard. 



"We were all on deck because we had nowhere else to 

 go. There was nothing in the cabin or the fo'c's'le but 

 water. The sea was now like mountains, but it stopped 



