So off I started with the Screamer. He
didn't say, though, that the wreck lay on a coral reef eight miles from
land, or I'd stayed to home in New Bedford.
"When I got to where the wreck lay you couldn't see a thing 'bove water.
So I got into an old divin' dress we had aboard--one we used on the
Ledge--oiled up the pump and went down to look her over, and by Jimmy
Criminy, not a scrap o' that wreck was left 'cept the rusty iron work
and that part o' the bottom plankin' of the vessel that lay under the
stones! Everything else was eaten up with the worms! Funniest-lookin'
place you ever see. The water was just as clear as air, and I could see
every one o' them stone plain as daylight--looked like so many big lumps
o' white sugar scattered 'round--and they _were_ big! One of 'em weighed
twenty-one tons, and none on 'em weighed less'n five. Of course I knew
how big they were 'fore I started, and I'd fitted up the Screamer
special to h'ist 'em, but I didn't know I'd have to handle 'em twice;
once from where they laid on that coral reef in twenty-eight feet o'
water and then unload 'em on the Navy Yard dock, above Hamilton, and
then pick 'em up agin, load 'em 'board the Screamer, and unload 'em
once more 'board a Boston brig they'd sent down for 'em--one o' them
high-waisted things 'bout sixteen feet from the water-line to the rail.
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