"Why, we'll all be drowned!" Branch declared.
"You can return to Cubitas if you wish."
"Yes, and fight some more! No, thank you! I've got a hunch that I'll be killed by the very next gun I see."
"Then you'd better risk the sharks."
Jacket, who was conducting an independent examination of the craft, made an encouraging report. "Ho! I'd go 'round the world in this boat," said he. "She's rotten, and you can stick your finger through her, but fish have no fingers. When the water comes in we'll dip it out."
"Do you want to go with us?" Johnnie eyed the newspaper man curiously.
"I--Y--yes!" Branch gasped. "I'll go, but it's a shame to lose all of Rosa's diamonds."
O'Reilly and one of the guides rode away to the farmhouse discovered on the previous afternoon, and returned in a few hours with all the tools they could find, together with a bucket of tar and a coil of galvanized wire. Then work began.
The wire, cut into short pieces, served as nails and staples with which to draw together the gaping seams. Old rags from the house and parts of the men's clothing supplied calking, upon which the tar was smeared. While one man shaped mast and oars, another cut Esteban's shelter tent into a sail, and fitted it. A stiff, sun- dried cowhide was wet, then stretched and nailed to the gunwales at the bow, forming a sort of forward deck to shelter the sick man from the sun and rain. Jacket climbed the near-by cocoa-palms and threw down a plentiful supply of nuts for food and water on the voyage.
With so many hands the work went fast, and late that evening the crazy craft was launched. It was necessary to handle her gingerly, and when she took the water she leaked abominably. But during the night she swelled and in the morning it was possible to bail her out.
O'Reilly had to acknowledge himself but poorly pleased with the boat. Branch called her a coffin and declared it was suicide to venture to sea in her, an opinion shared by the Cubans, but the girls were enchanted. To them this fragile bark looked stout and worthy; they were in a fever to be gone.
On the second afternoon the trade-wind died to a gentle zephyr, so the cocoanuts and other food were quickly put aboard, a bed of bows was rigged beneath the rawhide forecastle and Esteban was laid upon it. Then adieux were said and a start was made.