"The glass is steady," replied Mr. McKay. "If it should pipe up, we must slip the slings and let the canoes take their chance."
That afternoon Ellerton and Andy were busy preparing additional slings, for the former was resolved not to have a repetition of the morning's failure if it could be avoided.
Just before low water on the following morning, the salvage party set out for the wreck. As Mr. McKay had predicted, the weather was fine, there being no swell to speak of within the lagoon, though as usual the breakers were lashing themselves into milk-white foam upon the outer fringe of the reef.
Once more the slings were hove tight, and as the tide rose, the wrecked craft was again lifted from her ocean bed. Directly the yawl was "lively," as Ellerton expressed it, two more slings were passed underneath her keel so as to make doubly sure of her being swung properly.
At high water the wrecked craft was moved for a distance of nearly a hundred yards towards the shore ere she grounded. This completed the day's work, and on the following morning at low tide the "slack" was again taken in so as to enable the rising tide again to lift the yawl clear of the bottom.
This time, owing to the bed of the lagoon shoaling more rapidly, only twenty yards were gained.
"It will be a tiring and tedious job, I can see," said Terence. "How are we to manage when the hull is brought close in shore?"
"We'll have to be content to move her a few feet at a time," replied Ellerton. "It's slow work, I admit, but we are making very satisfactory progress."
With the arrival of the neap tides, the work came to a standstill, the rise of water being insufficient to justify the time and labour spent on it; so the slings were cast off and buoyed, and the canoes brought into the little natural harbour, where they would be safe from all but an exceptional on-shore gale.
During the interval, the lads utilised several spare lengths of rails, and spiking them into rough sleepers, formed a temporary hauling-up slip.
Two of the wagons were dismantled, and the axles and wheels attached to a cradle, while a winch was firmly bolted to a secure foundation on the shore at twenty yards above high-water mark.
The rails were to be laid down at low water as far seaward as possible, and the sleepers sunk by means of heavy stones. Andy hoped to avail himself of a high spring tide to float the yawl right over the cradle, then, casting off the lashings that supported her, they could haul the wreck up by means of the winch and effect the repairs at their leisure.