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The steamer, going slowly, and steering with a bridle from the tow-line to each quarter, kept the ship's canvas full until her crew had steadied the yards and furled it. They would then have rigged preventer-stays and shrouds on their shaky spars, had there been time; but there was not.
But before the sun had fallen to the level of the water, the hull of the Water-Witch had disappeared; and when the day closed, no part of her airy outline was visible, but that which was known to belong to her upper and lighter spars. In a few minutes afterwards, darkness covered the ocean; and the seamen of the royal cruiser were left to pursue their object, at random.
The outside spars had been selected and hauled on shore, and the work was already in progress; but they were left alone in their work, for the seamen appeared to have no idea at present of quitting the island. Restored by food and repose, they were now not content with the money which they had they were anxious for more.
'My lord, I was never so glad to go; for the hay must be in, and the ricks unthatched, and none of them can make spars like me, and two men to twist every hay-rope, and mother thinking it all right, and listening right and left to lies, and cheated at every pig she kills, and even the skins of the sheep to go
All round me were little ripples, combing over with a sharp, bristling sound, and slightly phosphorescent. The Hispaniola herself, a few yards in whose wake I was still being whirled along, seemed to stagger in her course, and I saw her spars toss a little against the blackness of the night; nay, as I looked longer, I made sure she also was wheeling to the southward.
The sailors began to rig the spars and tackle as a derrick set up on the bank of the creek, with grapple hooks like huge tongs to swing out over the water and grope in the muddy depths. Absorbed in this fascinating task, they were startled beyond measure to hear the thump, thump of thole-pins sounding from somewhere below them in the swamp. It was no Indian pirogue.
The Indians were unreliable customers and bad debts were not infrequent, the white settlers on the river had but little money and their pay was chiefly in shingles, staves, spars, clapboards, musquash and beaver skins; John Bull paid cash. About three years after the arrival of Simonds and White at St.
The mistress will no' be pleased wi' this she'll be in need o' siller too." So it was on the first good day, with the sun red through a frosty haze, and the snow melted for the most part, we yoked the horses to the creels, and took gear and plenishing and peats to McCurdy's hut away in the hills over beyond the peat hags, and it was a weary cow beast that trailed behind, tied to the spars.
The wind appeared to have reached the limits of its strength, and now blew steadily, with sufficient force to try our spars and gear to their utmost, but not quite strong enough to carry anything away, and we continued to increase our distance from the brig.
I can't hardly get those fixed eyes out of my sight, sir, and I lie awake for hours of a night, and so does Tom Cooper, and others of us, seeing those bodies torn by the spars and bleeding, floating in the water alongside the miserable ship. 'Well, sir, the rest of this lamentable story has been told by the mate of the vessel, and I don't know that I could add anything to it.
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