She was light
at the time and without ballast, and lay stranded upright
on her keel. All attempts by the beach-
combers to float her had proved futile; they had
stripped her of her standing rigging and everything
else of value, and had then abandoned her. Only
the evenly balanced hull was left, its bottom timbers
broken and its bent keelson buried in the sand. This
hulk little Tod Fogarty, aged ten, had taken possession
of; particularly the after-part of the hold, over
which he had placed a trusty henchman armed with
a cutlass made from the hoop of a fish barrel. The
henchman--aged seven--wore knee-trousers and a
cap and answered to the name of Archie. The refuge
itself bore the title of "The Bandit's Home."
This new hulk had taken the place of the old
schooner which had served Captain Holt as a landmark
on that eventful night when he strode Barnegat
Beach in search of Bart, and which by the action
of the ever-changing tides, had gradually settled until
now only a hillock marked its grave--a fate which
sooner or later would overtake this newly landed
sloop itself.
These Barnegat tides are the sponges that wipe
clean the slate of the beach. Each day a new record
is made and each day it is wiped out: records
from passing ships, an empty crate, broken spar or
useless barrel grounded now and then by the tide
in its flow as it moves up and down the sand at the
will of the waters.
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