“Oh, indeed, I was very busy, and kept the creek clear for quite a while,” said she; “but then they began to arrive like a marching army, and soon overwhelmed me. I suppose you have enough of them collected now, have you not?”
“No, Miss Millward, perhaps there is half enough. I shall go again to-morrow.”
“The sight of that immense number of calabashes makes me better able to realize the magnitude of the task we have undertaken,” remarked the old gentleman, in a thoughtful tone.
“But that should not trouble us,” I said; “we have plenty of time before us, and a little done every day makes a great deal. Now I roughly calculate that we must have a pile of gourds as large as the Spanish galleon, if you can imagine it lying on the beach; for the floating capacity of these round gourds in a heap would not represent, owing to the interstices between the individual gourds, more than half that of a single, great gourd of the size of the heap. Or to put it in another way, let us say we want a sufficient number of gourds to hold half the air that the galleon would hold if empty of water. Such a capacity would require, I imagine, a pile of gourds as great as the galleon. At any rate we will offer that for as good a guess as we are able now to make. I suppose we might estimate the cubical contents of the galleon, and so determine mathematically with reasonable accuracy just how many gourds would do the work of lifting it,--that is to say, of equalling its displacement or sufficiently approaching it. But I think we shall be near enough with our guess without that trouble.
The next day, starting earlier, I finished collecting the gourds by noon, and had them all out of the creek before two o’clock in the afternoon. As the wind was light and favorable, I proposed that we spend the remainder of the day in a voyage to the plantation, stay there all night, and return in the morning. This was heartily agreed to, and we speedily loaded the few things we were likely to need on board the “Alice,” including an armchair and Mr. Millward’s couch. When all was ready for the embarkation I carried him down and seated him, well braced, just aft of the centre-board.
We now hoisted sail and passed out over the bar. As we came into the neighborhood of the sunken galleon it was just three o’clock by Mr. Millward’s watch, the sun was shining brightly, and the water was clear. If I could pick up the submerged buoy I could now with the water-glass show my companions the wreck. My sight poles on shore were down, and I could only guess at the locality. However, with Miss Millward standing on the fore deck keeping a bright lookout for the bunch of submerged gourds, I cruised about as near as I could guess to the neighborhood. In a few minutes she caught sight of them, and we were speedily made fast. We hauled up directly above the wreck and put the glass over the side; then all, including Mr. Millward, who managed to do so by our joint assistance, took a good look at the venerable hulk.