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"'At the moment of asphyxiation, for I had hidden myself under the boat's cover, I heard footsteps upon the superstructure and coughed with empress' coughed loudly, Mr. Pyecroft. 'By this time I judged the vessel to be sufficiently far from land. A number of sailors extricated me amid language appropriate to their national brutality.
"I've often had a sort o' desire, d'ye see, to try whether this bit of a limb or the one that's round Mrs Stuart's waist is the strongest. Now if you have any desire to settle this question, just try to shove this boat's head up into the wind that's all!" This was said so emphatically by the pugnacious Bumpus that his companions laughed, and Corrie cheered in admiration.
Then Rasba cast off his tow lines, ran the launch back to the fleet, and made it fast to the port bow of the big boat, so that it was part of the fleet, with its power available to shove ahead or astern. A big oar on the mission boat's bow and another one out from Prebol's boat insured a short turn if it should be necessary to swing the boats around either way.
He lay back in the boat's stern and gazed at their summit of pinetrees and ferns. Bunches of gigantic ferns sprouted from every crevice, and not a leaf of the array but was worth half a lifetime's study. Yet Adam's eye wandered aimlessly over it all, as if it gave him no pleasure.
It is well to parenthesize here, that of the fatal accidents in the Sperm-Whale Fishery, this kind is perhaps almost as frequent as any. Sometimes, nothing is injured but the man who is thus annihilated; oftener the boat's bow is knocked off, or the thigh-board, on which the headsman stands, is torn from its place and accompanies the body.
Yet, when Cook and a boat's crew landed, a defiant war-chief at once threatened the boat, and persisted until he was shot dead. Almost all Cook's attempts to trade and converse with the Maoris ended in the same way a scuffle and a musket-shot. Yet the savages were never cowed, and came again. They were shot for the smallest thefts.
I was sure you would look for us if you cleared the harbor safely." Then Coke proclaimed his sentiments in the approved ritual of the high seas, while the big Norseman at the oars swung the boat's head round until both craft were traveling in company to the waiting launch.
On the 24th in the morning I sent the same officer again in my boat; and about noon the boat returned again with the two principal merchants of the factory and the lieutenant of the fort; for whose security they had kept my officer and one of my boat's crew as hostages, confining them to the governor's garden all the time: for they were very shy of trusting any of them to go into their fort, as my officer said: yet afterwards they were not shy of our company; and I found that my officer maliciously endeavoured to make them shy of me.
Enoch dropped his oars, seized the stern rope, jumped for the rocks and sprawled upon one. He made a quick turn of the rope, then leaped back for Milton, whose head showed a boat's length downstream. Forrester staggered ashore, then with a life preserver on the end of a rope, he started along the river's edge. Half a dozen strokes brought Enoch to Milton.
Heraugiere remained on deck, and from time to time descended to inform those below of the progress being made. It was slow indeed, for a strong wind laden with sleet blew directly down the river. Huge blocks of ice floated down, and the two boatmen with their poles had the greatest difficulty in keeping the boat's head up the stream.
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