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With the second barrel I took a long shot at the man sitting amazed, astride of the rail above. I saw him double up suddenly, and fall inboard sideways, but the fellow following him made a convulsive effort, and leapt out of sight on to the deck of the ship. I dropped the discharged weapon, and fired the first barrel of the other at the upper of the two men clinging halfway up the ship's side.
Tie it to a rib with a slip-knot, having the handle in easy reach, and when you come to a narrow, tortuous channel, where shrubs and weeds crowd you on both sides, take the double-blade inboard, use the pudding stick, and you can go almost anywhere that a muskrat can. In fishing for trout or floating deer, remember you are dealing with the wary, and that the broad blades are very showy in motion.
The line was then taken forwards by Tim Rooney outside the rigging, he walking along the gunwale till he gained the forecastle; there, another man then lending a hand, the line was hauled in with the end of a strong steel hawser bent on to it, that had been already passed over the stern of the tug, and the bight carried across the "towing-horse" and firmly fastened to the tug's fore-deck, while our end on reaching the forecastle of the Silver Queen was similarly secured inboard, Tim satisfying himself that it was taut by jumping on it.
The weather was very fine, and the ship rolled but little; even then, the strain upon the mast was terrific, and right glad was I when at last the immense cube of fat, flesh, and bone was eased inboard and gently lowered on deck. As soon as it was secured the work of dividing it began. From the snout a triangular mass was cut, which was more than half pure spermaceti.
Throwing the oars inboard with easy skill, Seymour sat motionless while the boat glided swiftly down toward the landing-steps, and the silence was broken only by the soft, delicious lip, lip, lip of the water, which seemed to cling to and caress the bow of the skiff until it finally came to rest. The man waited until the girl looked up at him.
It was a strange sight to look abroad into the dusky star-lit night and observe the boundless Atlantic stretching silent and still on every hand, and then to turn one's eyes inboard and note the noisy, drunken, ruffianly rabble grouped about the hatchway, naked to the waist, and toiling in the dim lantern light at the tackles by which they were hoisting the bales of costly merchandise out of the hold.
Through these eyes I rove a sort of ridge-rope, leading it also through the eyes of several stancheons that were firmly stepped on the thwarts. The effect, when the ridge-rope was set up, was to give the boat the protection of this waist-cloth, which inclined inboard, however, sufficiently to leave an open passage between the two sides, of only about half the beam of the boat.
A second wave, crushing inboard, hurled him back the way he had come, and left him half-drowned where the poop steps should have been. Bruised and bleeding, dimly conscious, he felt for the rail and dragged himself to his feet. Unless something could be done, he knew the last moment had come. As he faced the poop, the wind drove into his mouth with suffocating force.
The captain had housed topgallant masts and lashed his guns inboard; yet she rolled so that you would not have trusted a cat on her storm-washed decks.
Sliding his body gently inboard again, Leicester turned to the dozing helmsman, and exclaimed "Here, you Ned; rouse up, man. There's a big shark under the counter, so get out the shark-hook, ask the cook for a piece of good fat pork, and muster the watch aft in readiness to haul him inboard, in case we can coax him into swallowing the bait."
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