Chapter 16 - Page 2

we must keep
the Montauk off the bottom. Turn-to the people, Mr. Leach, and get up your
sheers that we may step our jury-masts at once; the smallest breeze on the
land would drive us ashore, without any after-sail."

While the mates and the crew set about completing the work they had
prepared the previous day, Captain Truck and his passengers passed the
time in ascertaining all they could concerning the wreck, and the reasons
of their being themselves in a position so very different from what they
had previously believed.

As respects the first, little more could be ascertained; she lay
absolutely high and dry on a hard sandy beach, where she had probably been
cast during the late gale, and sufficient signs were made out by the
captain, to prove to him that she had been partly plundered. More than
this could not be discovered at that distance, and the work of the Montauk
was too urgent to send a boat manned with her own people to examine. Mr.
Blunt, Mr. Sharp, Mr. Monday, and the servants of the two former, however,
volunteering to pull the cutter, it was finally decided to look more
closely into the facts, Captain Truck himself taking charge of the
expedition.--While the latter is getting ready, a word of explanation will
suffice to tell the reader the reason why the Montauk had fallen so much
to leeward.

The ship being so near the coast, it became now very obvious she was
driven by a current that set along the land, but which, it was probable,
had set towards it more in the offing. The imperceptible drift between the
observation of the previous day and the discovery of the coast, had
sufficed to carry the vessel a great distance; and to this simple cause,
coupled perhaps with some neglect in the steerage during the past night,
was her present situation to be solely attributed. Just at this moment,
the little air there was came from the land, and by keeping her head
off-shore, Captain Truck entertained no doubt of his being able to escape
the calamity that had befallen the other ship in the fury of the gale. A
wreck is always a matter of so much interest with mariners, therefore,
that taking all these things into view, he had come to the determination
we have mentioned, of examining into the history of the one in sight, so
far as circumstances permitted.

The Montauk carried three boats; the launch, a large, safe, and
well-constructed craft, which stood in the usual chucks between the
foremast and mainmast; a jolly-boat, and a cutter. It was next to
impossible to get the first into the water, deprived as the ship was of
its mainmast; but the other hanging at davits, one on each quarter, were
easily lowered. The packets seldom carry any arms beyond a light gun to
fire signals with,