lear horizon of an open sea
in view around, with vessels passing on their courses, the desertion of
the main post seems final and complete, with no navigator at the guides
and no hand at the wheel.

The flood tide making over the shoals sets in with a _thrussh_ of broken
water alee of the wreck. The salvors' cutter, from which the mate is
sounding and marking bottom, spins in widening circles in the eddies and
shows the strength of early springs. As yet the stream binds the wreck
hard to the bank, setting broad on from seaward, but relief will come
when the spent water turns east on the last of the flood. Survey
completed, the salvage officers clamber to the deck again. The leak in
number three is their only concern; if that can be overcome, there seems
no bar to a successful programme. The commander questions the mate as to
the depth of water alongside, is assured of draught, and signals his
vessel to heave up and come on. The strength and onrush of the tidal
race makes the manoeuvre difficult, and it is on second attempt, with
a wide sweep and backing on plane of the current, she drives unhandily
to position. The impact of her boarding, for all the guardian fenders,
jars and stirs the wreck, but brings a confident look to the salvors'
faces; as readily shaken as that, they assure themselves the responding
hull will come off with 'a bit of a pinch' on the angle of withdrawal
that they have planned on the tidal chart.

With hawsers and warps barely fast, the great pumps are hove up in air
and swung over the hatchway of the doubtful hold. But for the general
order to carry on, there are few directions and little admonition. Every
man of the busy group of mechanics and riggers has 'a brick for the
wall,' and the wriggling lengths of armoured hose are coupled and
launched over the coamings as quickly as the massive motors are lowered.
Foundering with splash and gurgle, like uncouth sea-monsters in their
appanage of tortuous rubber tentacles, the sheen of their polished bulk
looms through the green translucent flood of solid seawater, the grave
and surely augmented tide that they are trimmed to master. Again, the
seeming hopelessness of the task, the handicap of man against element,
presents a doubt to one's mind. Two shell-like casings of steel, a line
of piping and cab-tyre coils for power leads--to compete with the
infiltration of an ocean; there are even small fish darting in the flood
of it, a radiating Medusa floats