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The moment that our topsail was backed I heard the creaking of davit blocks, and the other sounds of a boat being lowered; and a few minutes later I heard the roll of the oars in the rowlocks as she was pulled away from the ship.
"Holy mother! they are both drowned!" almost screamed Isabella. "Lost! lost!" groaned Don Gonzales, with uplifted hands and tottering form. "No! no!" exclaimed General Harero, "not yet, not yet." He had jumped on board the barque, and had cut the davit ropes with his sword, and thus succeeded in launching the boat with himself and the two seamen in it.
Down the ladder I rushed, on to the main deck, seized one of the davit tackles and slid down into the boat; and as the men replied to my question that all were present, the bowman thrust the boat away from the sinking steamer's side, and the oars churned up the water as we pulled away.
Within half an hour after the anchor was dropped the young prisoners heard the creak of the davit blocks, and a moment later the splash of a boat taking water close to the nearest gun-port. Jeremy stretched as far as his chain would allow, and through a crevice saw four men start to row toward shore.
She was fleid, but he said it was the only wy to mak me 'at I couldna gang awa. It was juist ower there whaur thae cabbages is 'at he dug the hole wi' a spade, an' buried the staff. Hendry dug it up next mornin'." On a Thursday Pete Lownie was buried, and when Hendry returned from the funeral Jess asked if Davit Lunan had been there.
But they'll have arranged for our coming from the east, and here we are upon their west." "Ay," says Alan, "I wish we were in some force, and this was a battle, we would have bonnily out-manoeuvred them! But it isnae, Davit; and the way it is, is a wee thing less inspiring to Alan Breck. I swither, Davie." "Time flies, Alan," said I. "I ken that," said Alan.
In less than a minute one davit snapped like a pipe-stem under the tremendous strain, and immediately afterward the windlass to which the chain was attached was torn from its bolts, and went crashing overboard, tearing away a portion of the stern-rail in its descent. Crab Q instantly released the chain it had held, and in a moment the great cylinder hung almost perpendicularly from one chain.
Several ventilators had been shorn off level with the deck, and the water had poured in tons down the openings thus formed; the two quarterboats had disappeared altogether, and of another boat only the stem and stern posts remained, hanging to the davit tackles by their ring-bolts.
It was a kind o' like a man hoarse wi' a cauld, an' yet no that either. "'Wha bides i' this hoose? he said, ay standin there. "'It's Davit Patullo's hoose, I said, 'an' am the wife. "'Whaur's Hendry McQumpha? he speired. "'He's deid, I said. "He stood still for a fell while. "'An' his wife, Jess? he said. "'She's deid, too, I said. "I thocht he gae a groan, but it may hae been the gate.
His companion, John Davis, being unable to swim, drifted with the tide near the boat tackle, or davit falls, the blocks being overhauled down near the water; one of these he laid hold of, which the Malays perceiving, dropped their boat astern and despatched him! the cook sprang into a canoe along side, and in attempting to push off she was capsized; and being unable to swim, he got on the bottom, and paddled ashore with his hands, where he was made prisoner.
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