Upon the return, from any beam or
bulkhead, of a doubtful sound, we must up axe and hew
into the timber: a violent and--from the amount of dry
rot in the wreck--a mortifying exercise. Every night
saw a deeper inroad into the bones of the FLYING
SCUD--more beams tapped and hewn in splinters, more
planking peeled away and tossed aside--and every night
saw us as far as ever from the end and object of our
arduous devastation. In this perpetual disappointment,
my courage did not fail me, but my spirits dwindled;
and Nares himself grew silent and morose. At night,
when supper was done, we passed an hour in the cabin,
mostly without speech: I, sometimes dozing over a book;
Nares, sullenly but busily drilling sea-shells with the
instrument called a Yankee fiddle. A stranger might
have supposed we were estranged; as a matter of fact,
in this silent comradeship of labour, our intimacy
grew.
I had been struck, at the first beginning of our
enterprise upon the wreck, to find the men so ready at
the captain's lightest word. I dare not say they
liked, but I can never deny that they admired him
thoroughly.
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