To the infinite satisfaction of the Swash’s crew, the weight was found quite manageable, so long as the hull remained beneath the water.  Mulford, with three or four assistants, was kept on board the schooner lightening her, by getting the other anchor off her bows, and throwing the different objects overboard, or on the decks of the brig.  By the time the bulwarks reached the surface, as much was gained in this way, as was lost by having so much of the lighter woodwork rise above the water.  As a matter of course, however, the weight increased as the vessel rose, and more especially as the lower portion of the spars, the bowsprit, boom, &c., from being buoyant assistants, became so much dead weight to be lifted.

Spike kept a watchful eye on his spars, and the extra supports he had given them.  He was moving, the whole time, from point to point, feeling shrouds and back-stays, and preventers, in order to ascertain the degree of strain on each, or examining how the purchases stood.  As for the crew, they cheered at their toil, incessantly, passing from capstan bars to the handspikes, and vice versƒ.  They, too, felt that their task was increasing in resistance as it advanced, and now found it more difficult to gain an inch, than it had been at first to gain a foot.  They seemed, indeed, to be heaving their own vessel out, instead of heaving the other craft up, and it was not long before they had the Swash heeling over toward the wreck several streaks.  The strain, moreover, on everything, became not only severe, but somewhat menacing.  Every shroud, back-stay, and preventer was as taut as a bar of iron, and the chain-cable that led to the anchor planted off abeam, was as straight as if the brig were riding by it in a gale of wind.  One or two ominous surges aloft, too, had been heard, and, though no more than straps and slings settling into their places under hard strains, they served to remind the crew that danger might come from that quarter.  Such was the state of things, when Spike called out to “heave and pall,” that he might take a look at the condition of the wreck.

Although a great deal remained to be done, in order to get the schooner to float, a great deal had already been done.  Her precise condition was as follows:  Having no cabin windows, the water had entered her, when she capsized, by the only four apertures her construction possessed.  These were the companion-way, or cabin-doors; the sky-light; the main-hatch, or the large inlet amid-ships, by which cargo went up and down; and the booby-hatch, which was the counterpart of the companion-way, forward; being intended to admit of ingress to the forecastle, the apartment of the crew.  Each of these hatch-ways, or orifices, had the usual defences of “coamings,” strong frame-work around their margins.  These coamings rose six or eight inches above the deck, and answered the double purpose of strengthening the vessel, in a part, that without them would be weaker han common,