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As good luck would have it, they had had a whale alongside a day or two previous, and the great tackles were still aloft, and the massive curved blubber-hook, now clean and dry, was still attached to the end. Soon he was carefully swung inside the high bulwarks, and gently landed upon the capstan head. Where did'st thou see the White Whale? how long ago?"
With a start all glared at dark Ahab, who was surrounded by five dusky phantoms that seemed fresh formed out of air. The First Lowering The phantoms, for so they then seemed, were flitting on the other side of the deck, and, with a noiseless celerity, were casting loose the tackles and bands of the boat which swung there.
"And I'll just see to the hoisting out of that boat," said the Captain. "Good thing I had you put in the new pins." The third mate on the bridge rang for steam and made a lee for the lowering of the lifeboat, the hands put a strain on the tackles, and the carpenter and bo'sun went to work to knock out the chocks on which she rested. Her steel-shod keel had rusted into them.
My very complete and even elaborate arrangements had been made some time before and I now had only to look them over and see that they were in going order; to test, for instance, the brass handle that was connected with the electric main, and see that the well-oiled blocks of a couple of purchase tackles ran smoothly and silently.
"Let go!" yelled George, as he felt the boat take the water, and prompt at the word the two men who were stationed at the tackles drew the well- greased toggles, releasing the boat, oars were thrown out, and away dashed the boat right down to leeward, heading to pass under the stern of the wreck and come up in the comparatively sheltered water under her lee.
There was no time to rig hoisting tackles aloft, nor was there need, as a gang to each could launch them bodily over, one on either side. "Sailors all, from head to feet, but wild 'packet rats' whose necks were already in their halters! I considered my chance in an open boat with that crowd, and thought of my gun, lying somewhere aft on the main deck.
I heard the commodore shout, and saw the sailing-master slide down the ladder and grope among the dead and wounded and mass of broken spars and tackles, and finally pick up a smeared rope's end, which I helped him drag to the poop.
"Evidently you ain't been a close observer, my boy," he commented at last, impersonally, "or you wouldn't be talkin' of Pete not lookin'. I ain't no weather prophet, but I'd hint to the feller who tackles that job to say his prayers before he starts. He won't have much time afterwards."
"Boots" viewed his advent with suspicion and joined him with a belligerent expression on his face. "What are you doing over here, you spy?" he demanded. "Trying to get our signals!" "No, just looking," replied the other innocently. "Looking at my tackles, maybe, eh! You tell George he can't have any of them.
As a football player, he was an excellent punter, a good plunger, and a strong defensive man. On account of his kicking and plunging ability he was moved to fullback in his second year. In the Virginia game he backed up the line on the defense. All that afternoon he worked like a Trojan to hold in check the powerful masses Virginia had been driving at the tackles.
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