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Sometimes the ambulances blocked the quay and the wounded and frost-bitten were lifted into the motor-boats, and sometimes a squad of marines lined the landing stage, and as a coffin under a French or English flag was borne up the stone steps stood at salute. So crowded was the harbor that the oars of the boatmen interlocked.
Greek boatmen even at the present day refuse to attempt the circumnavigation; and probably any government less apathetic than that of the Turks would at once re-open the old cutting.
Those who know the secrets of the ocean currents of the northern seas have their own scientific explanations to give; but our native boatmen and sailors, who were not so well acquainted with the eccentricities of the Gulf stream as with the popular legends of Orkney, accounted for the Swelkie in this way: A certain King Frodi had a magical quern, or hand mill, called Grotti; the largest quern ever known in Denmark.
The performance of Jean La Marche was highly relished by the critical boatmen, and drew from them that flattering mark of approval, so welcome to a vocalist, an encore of the whole long ballad, from beginning to end. As the line of canoes swept up the stream, a welcome cheer occasionally greeted them from the shore, or a voice on land joined in the gay refrain.
Our boatmen now joined in the general uproar, which reached its height when the moon was entirely obscured. In explanation we were told that the “Great Dragon” was endeavoring to swallow up the moon, and that the loudest possible noise must be made to frighten him away. Shouts hailed the reappearance of the moon.
Each boat had about four hands, three of whom remained on board her, while the fourth stood upon the ladder and hauled at the painter to keep the boat to which he belonged alongside. As out of the twenty boats lying there not more than two could be at the foot of the ladder together, the conflict was a desperate one. All the boatmen shouted, "Here, sar. This good boat, sar.
The boatmen vigorously plied the pumps to save the vessel from sinking outright; a party of Italian soldiers soon arrived on the shore, and in the course of a couple of hours they had laboriously dragged the concealed Hollanders into the inner harbour and made their vessel fast, close to the guard-house of the castle. And now a crowd of all sorts came on board.
The boatmen hailed the John Cropper just as the crew were heaving anchor, and told their errand. The captain refused with a dreadful oath to stop his ship for anyone, whoever swung for it. But Will Wilson, standing at the stern, shouted through his hands, "So help me God, Mary Barton, I'll come back in the pilot-boat time enough to save his life!"
The Mohawks, or Caniengas as they should properly be called possessed the Mohawk River, and covered Lake George and Lake Champlain with their flotillas of large canoes, managed with the boldness and skill which, hereditary in their descendants, make them still the best boatmen of the North American rivers.
And while they were doing this, and wondering what this night expedition really meant, Hanz smoked his pipe and nursed his courage. In his heart, however, he wished himself out of the affair and in a more honest occupation. As for Chapman, he told a number of stories tended to excite the cupidity of the boatmen.
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