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The men of the yacht could offer no resistance; the oars were taken out of the boat and the men put in again. 'My lord, said Pickersgill, 'your boat is manned, do me the favour to step into it; and you, sir, do the same. I should be sorry to lay my hands upon a peer of the realm, or a king's officer even on half-pay.
Then, at the whaler's orders, the boat was swung round and the men held their oars ready to back-water. The place could not have been picked out with greater accuracy if the whaler had known the exact spot where the big cetacean was going to appear. Within thirty feet of the boat the water began to swirl and boil.
I opened the door of the cab and dragged out "Le Balafre." Right and left I peered, truly like a stage villain, and then hauled my unpleasant burden along the irregularly paved path and on to the little wharf. Out in mid-stream a Thames Police patrol was passing, and I stood for a moment until the creak of the oars grew dim. Then: there was a dull splash far below ... and silence again.
So ye be craving for baptism, the ferryman said, and looked as if he did not care a wild fig whether Joseph got it that morning or missed it. But there was no use arguing with the ferryman, who after a long stare fell to his oars, but so leisurely that Joseph seized one of them and putting his full strength upon it turned the boat's head up-stream.
Constans could see that it was a war-vessel of the largest size, for there were full sixty oars on a side arranged in two banks. The figure-head was the representation of a black swan, and on the poop-deck stood the slight, graceful figure of a man wearing a plumed hat. Constans saw him remove the cigar from his lips as he turned to give an order.
In his powerful hands, indeed, they seemed little more than a pair of sculls, which were wielded without effort, and, as he was expert in their use, the Delaware remained a passive spectator of the proceedings. The progress of the Ark had something of the stately solemnity of a funeral procession, the dip of the oars being measured, and the movement slow and steady.
But when Don Quixote noticed his squire's interest in the naked creatures at the oars, he turned and said to him softly: "Ah, Sancho my friend, how quickly and cheaply you might finish off the disenchantment of Dulcinea, if you would strip to the waist and take your place among those gentlemen!
No! there she was, safe inside the reef, with her sail lowered. The next instant he was gliding forward in comparatively smooth water. "Lower the sail," he shouted, "and get out the oars." He was soon alongside Green's boat. "We will lie on our oars, and wait till daylight to find a safe place for landing," said the master. "Let us thank God that we have escaped thus far.
These were now coiled up carefully at the bow and stern, ready for immediate use. The oars were secured by ropes to the sides of the boat, so that they could not be washed away, but would swing fore and aft. "All ready, lads?" cried the captain, "Now altogether, shove, and off she goes!"
All this time the Goths and Scandinavians were either learning ideas of navigation from the Romans of the Mediterranean or the Greeks of the Black Sea, or they were inventing for themselves better ways of constructing ships; and although they propelled them mainly by oars, they used masts and sails as well.
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