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As Raoul suspected, his cable had been grappled; and, seizing the rope, he tightened it to a severe strain, securing the in-board part. Then he passed down to the cable himself, directing his companions to hand him the rope-end of the shank-painter, which he fastened to the cable by a jamming hitch. This took half a minute; in half a minute more he was on the felucca's forecastle again.
The felucca rode stationary, while the lugger dropped astern fathom after fathom until she lay more than a hundred yards distant from the fiery mass. As a matter of course, while the cable was paid out, the portion to which the lanyard or rope part of the shank-painter was fastened dropped into the water, while the felucca rode by the chain.
As her own ring-stopper and shank-painter were weak, the patent windlass unlocked, and the end of the cable not secured in the chain-locker, the Ishmaelite walked calmly away with the anchor and a hundred fathoms of chain, which, at the next port, she sold as legitimate spoil of the sea.
While he was thus busied, Mark was looking to the stopper and shank-painter of the sheet-anchor, which had been got ready to let go, before Captain Crutchely was lost. He even succeeded in getting that heavy piece of metal a cock-bill, without calling on Bob for assistance.
He started to cast off the shank-painter of the second anchor, when Bill Blunt's hoarse bellow pealed from aft. "Hey, Mister Rolfe, she's sinkin'!" It required but one keen glance over the side to prove the fact, and now, after one staggering moment of unbelief, the truth flashed upon the mate. The mystery of those gnawing rats, too, was clear. "You dirty swine!" he screamed at the schooner.
"We are none too soon, sir," said Stowel, the moment he had received the rear-admiral with the customary etiquette of the hour. "It's a cap-full of wind already, and it promises to blow harder before morning. We are catted and fished, sir, and the forecastle-men are passing the shank-painter at this moment."
Then he was seen on the taffrail of the felucca, with a spare shank-painter, which had been lying on the forecastle, on his shoulder. "Antoine! Francois! Grégoire!" he called out, in a voice of thunder "follow me! the rest clear away the cable and bend a hawser to the better end!" The people of le Feu-Follet were trained to order and implicit obedience.
"The signal was made for the grand fleet to anchor, All in the Downs that night for to meet; So cast off your shank-painter, let go your cat's-topper, Hawl up your clew-garnets, let fly tack and sheet." Without waiting to hear any more, they went up the stairs and entered the bedroom.
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