"The thing's worth over a million pounds," appraised Caradoc.
Suddenly Madden straightened with an idea. "How about hitching that
schooner to the dock and towing her?"
"What an American idea!" Caradoc lifted his voice slightly.
"Would we--make any--headway, sir, with the schooner's--light
machinery?" asked Greer, his sentence punctuated by shoves at his oar.
"We would have to try and see. Besides, we would have to do little else
than help the current we are in. The Atlantic eddy sweeps through the
Caribbean close to the South American coast. If we could control our
direction slightly, we would perhaps make La Guayra or the Port of
Spain."
"With a seven or eight mile current that would take us months--years....
What is the distance to La Guayra?" this from Smith.
"Something around fifteen hundred miles. But that isn't the point. It
isn't how long it takes us, it's can we _do_ it. Had you thought of
the salvage end of this thing?"
"Salvage, no. We'll get salvage on the schooner--a bagatelle."
Madden shook his head, "No, I believe we ought to get salvage on the
whole dock."
"Salvage on the dock!" Caradoc opened his eyes. "We'd be jolly well near
millionaires. No, that's impossible. A crew can't salve their own
vessel."
"Yes, but we are not the crew of the dock," insisted Madden, "at least
not the navigating crew.
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