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When they took possession of the prize, they went into the mizzen-top, and found him dead, with one ball through his head, and another through his breast. During that time she had been twice on fire in her fore-chains and in her forecastle.
Both well accustomed to the use of the oar, they brought the course of the boat under sufficient control to keep her on the smoothest side of the channel the side which was nearest to the Islet of the Calf. As they came swiftly up with the wreck, Midwinter resigned his oar to Allan; and, watching his opportunity, caught a hold with the boat-hook on the fore-chains of the vessel.
Upon this we manned out two boats full of men, and very well armed, and ordered them to board her at the same minute, as near as they could, and to enter one at her fore-chains on the one side, and the other amidships on the other side.
No, thank God! The firemen had been warned to keep away from the up-take, so the fragments of shell fell harmlessly on the iron floor-plates. We had rushed on the doomed ship, relentless as fate, crashing through her barricade of heavy spars and torpedo fenders, striking her below her starboard fore-chains, and crushing far into her.
As he looked over the gangway and bow, coming round on the lee side of the forecastle, he saw some canvas hanging on one of the night-heads. "What have we here?" said he. No one answered. He looked over the fore-chains, and found the whole lower studding-sail towing in the water. "No wonder she don't move," said the mate; "here is enough to stop the Constitution herself.
We grasped at anything we could, and so brought up bruised and half-drowned in the fore-chains; but as the wheel ran free, another sea struck her and slewed her round. There was a second while the water seemed over, under, and on every side, and then the Aurungzebe went broadside on Moonfleet beach, with a noise like thunder and a blow that stunned us.
She was full of water, and lay as deep as her main-chains; but her bows stood high, and her fore-chains were out of the sea. It was miraculous to see her keep afloat as the long swell rolled over her in a cruel, foaming succession of waves.
You sight them after weeks of crashing through water as black as black marble because it's so deep, and you sit in the fore-chains day after day and see the sun rise almost afraid because the sea's so lonely. 'Who is afraid? you, or the sun? 'The sun, of course. And there are noises under the sea, and sounds overhead in a clear sky.
No one on board heard a soft splashing of the Water as Adair swam to the boat towing astern and cut the painter where it touched the water-line; the dense fog hid everything from view. Holding the line in his left hand he swam silently along, drawing the boat after him, till he reached the fore-chains.
"Now, is that a fish?" cried Prose, a little alarmed. "Well, I do declare! I say, Mr Interpreter, what is that thing?" "Call him buffalo, sar." "Well, I do declare! I always thought that buffaloes were animals that lived on shore." "Nothing like travelling, Mr Prose," observed Courtenay; "you'll know a buffalo, now, if ever you happen to hook one, when you are fishing out of the fore-chains."
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