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Another shot rang out across the dancing water and a bullet flattened itself against a pipe stanchion. "Guess you'd better put a shot into each of those ports," said Steve. "Maybe they'll keep away from them. Sorry to damage your boat, Harry." "Bother the damage!" said Harry. "Plug her full of lead if you like!" Wink's revolver spoke, and: "Bull's-eye," he announced calmly. Another shot followed.
The whole operation did not last more than a few minutes; he saw the men reach the railway, pass the rope through the pulley there, and then secure it to the waiting engine. The officer now came up and joined Helmar. "You have done well, my lad," he cried. "Do you think the stanchion will hold the weight of the heavy guns?" "I hope so, sir," answered Helmar, eyeing the crowbar narrowly.
Every moment now the stern was lifted higher in air and then dropped deeper into the roaring, hissing waters, and women tightened their hold upon the taffrail and gave shrill little shrieks, and huddled closer together, and presently one of the elders fell back and begged to be led below, and then another, and by the time the last glimmer of the town had been hid from view and only the steady gleam of the lighthouse shone forth upon their foaming wake, the hardiest of the gay little party of the earlier evening had been carefully assisted down the brass-bound stairway, and when five bells tinkled windily somewhere forward, there, with little hands clasped about the stanchion, a shawl thrown over her head, that head pillowed in her arms, there alone in the darkness and the rush of the wind and sea, there, the very picture of heartbroken girlhood, still sat Pancha, and Loring could bear it no longer.
Neither knew how long it was before she began to understand that he, not she, was winning. The human answer to her appeal was full. He gave her all she asked of admiration, kiss for kiss. And then her arms did not cling so tightly, although his strong right arm was like a stanchion. Because be knew that he, not she, was winning, he picked her up in his arms and kissed her as if she were a child.
Nevertheless, this calm security was presently invaded by a sense of stealthy life and motion. What had seemed a fixed shadow suddenly detached itself from the deck and began to slip stanchion by stanchion along the bulwarks toward the companion-way. At the cabin-door it halted and crouched motionless.
We found the state palace of the Governor of Nevada Territory to consist of a white frame one-story house with two small rooms in it and a stanchion supported shed in front for grandeur it compelled the respect of the citizen and inspired the Indians with awe. The newly arrived Chief and Associate Justices of the Territory, and other machinery of the government, were domiciled with less splendor.
But while we was a-doin' that an' the boat is hitched tight to a stanchion 'longside o' the flume, the water backs up behind so high that it looks as though the pianner is a-goin' ter git wet. This skeers Jud, an' he seems to lose his head someways. "'Hustle up, Oram! says he, very nervous-like. 'The boat's crowdin' down so it won't let any water past. Ontie that rope.
One of the men had an ugly gash across his forehead from being thrown against a stanchion, another had a bleeding and probably broken nose. Brown applied first aid to the injured, while Captain Nicholson got the submarine under way again and headed for the mouth of the harbor. "I wonder if that last torpedo went home," said Frank. "Do you suppose it did, captain?" "I don't know," was the reply.
On the forward deck I found him at last, a solitary figure leaning against the stanchion rail, smoking his pipe, and gazing abstractedly out across the smooth sea, his eyes apparently focussed upon the black, far-distant horizon. Gently I tapped him on the arm, as he seemed unaware of my approach. "Well, Mr. Berrington," he said calmly, without looking round or moving, "what can I do for you?"
But even as he prepared to put the binoculars back in the pocket alongside the binnacle with an evil smile playing about his thin lips, there came a startling shock. Barr was almost thrown from his feet and only saved himself from falling by grasping a stanchion. The ship quivered from stem to stern as if she had been hit a staggering blow. "We've struck a reef!" exclaimed the late bos'n.
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