forward water-tight
bulkhead shut tight, and the pumps set to work, but it was no use.
That forward compartment just filled up with water, and the 'Thomas
Hyke' settled down with her bow clean under. Her deck was slanting
forward like the side of a hill, and the propeller was lifted up so
that it wouldn't have worked even if the engine had been kept going.
The captain had the masts cut away, thinking this might bring her up
some, but it didn't help much. There was a pretty heavy sea on, and
the waves came rolling up the slant of the deck like the surf on the
sea-shore. The captain gave orders to have all the hatches battened
down so that water couldn't get in, and the only way by which
anybody could go below was by the cabin door, which was far aft.
This work of stopping up all openings in the deck was a dangerous
business, for the decks sloped right down into the water, and if
anybody had slipped, away he'd have gone into the ocean, with
nothing to stop him; but the men made a line fast to themselves, and
worked away with a good will, and soon got the deck and the house
over the engine as tight as a bottle. The smoke-stack, which was
well forward, had been broken down by a spar when the masts had been
cut, and as the waves washed into the hole that it left, the captain
had this plugged up with old sails, well fastened down. It was a
dreadful thing to see the ship a-lying with her bows clean under
water and her stern sticking up. If it hadn't been for her
water-tight compartments that were left uninjured, she would have
gone down to the bottom as slick as a whistle. On the afternoon of
the day after the collision the wind fell, and the sea soon became
pretty smooth. The captain was quite sure that there would be no
trouble about keeping afloat until some ship came along and took us
off. Our flag was flying, upside down, from a pole in the stern; and
if anybody saw a ship making such a guy of herself as the 'Thomas
Hyke' was then doing, they'd be sure to come to see what was the
matter with her, even if she had no flag of distress flying. We
tried to make ourselves as comfortable as we could, but this wasn't
easy with everything on such a dreadful slant. But that night we
heard a rumbling and grinding noise down in the hold, and the slant
seemed to get worse. Pretty soon the captain roused all hands and
told us that the cargo of pig-iron was shifting and sliding down to
the bow, and that it wouldn't be long before it wou