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Now, when they had made an end of tautening the rope, I perceived that it was, at last, well clear of the weed through all its length, being at its lowest part nigh twenty feet above the surface, and, at that, a sudden thought came to me which sent me hastily to the bo'sun; for it had occurred to me that there existed no reason why we should not pay a visit to those aboard the hulk.
On top of this sense of her had come each time a sudden vivid picture Anna in their bedroom attaching her garters to the tops of her stockings; Anna tautening her body as she slipped out of her nightgown ... or a picture of her pressing his head against her breasts and whispering passionately, "Erik, I adore you." The strangeness then would leave her and again she was something he had absorbed.
"Prime!" shouted the officer on the quarter-deck. Primers were placed in the vents of the already loaded guns, and the gun-captains stepped back, tautening the lock-strings, and bending down to glance along the sights. "Point! Tell the division officers to train on the craft that's coming, and wait orders." This last command to a midshipman aid. The silence throughout the great ship was profound.
She perceptibly slackened way, and before long the water astern of her ceased to be ruffled. An oily calm spreading across the sea from shoreward overhauled her by degrees, overtook, and held her, with sails idle and sheets tautening and sagging as she rolled on the heave of the swell. Captain Pomery promptly checked our rejoicing, telling us this was about the worst that could happen.
Standing on the trap, leg-manacled and arm-manacled, the knot against the neck, the black cap drawn, they will drop me down until the momentum of my descending weight is fetched up abruptly short by the tautening of the rope.
The night seemed preternaturally still, the silence which enveloped us being so profound that the noises of the ship the occasional heavy flap of her canvas, accompanied by a rain- like pattering of reef-points; the creak of the jaws of the mainboom or of the gaff overhead on the mast; the jerk of the mainsheet tautening out suddenly to the heave of the schooner; the kicking of the rudder, and the gurgling swirl of water about it and along the bends only served to emphasise while they broke in upon it with an irritating harshness altogether disproportionate to their volume.
We then sat down by the roadside and superintended the righting of the saddle and the tautening of the girths by several natives, who "took in the slack" with an energy that must have made the poor elephant very "uncomfy" about the waist! I secretly hoped it was hurting him horribly, as I had not forgiven him for his practical jokes on the way up. We had no more thrills.
He got to his feet with lithe swiftness of movement, and sprang close to the desk. He bent his head forward challengingly, to meet the glare of his accuser's eyes. There was no flinching in his own steely stare. His nerves had ceased their jangling under the tautening of necessity. "You did!" Burke vociferated. He put his whole will into the assertion of guilt, to batter down the man's resistance.
First the surface of the ocean was crisped over with a sparkling ripple, and then wavelets appeared, and soon they increased to waves with frothy crests; and the schooner sprung forward, the canvas swelling, the braces tautening, and the masts and spars cracking with the additional strain put on them.
With sunrise we found ourselves hauling in under the high land about Cape Maysi; and here we ran into the calm belt dividing the land and sea-breezes, and lay for an hour rolling gunwale under, our great sail flapping noisily and sending the dew pattering down on deck in regular showers with every roll of the little vessel, whilst the huge yard swayed and creaked aloft, tugging at the stumpy mast and tautening out the standing rigging alternately to port and starboard with such violence that I momentarily expected to see the whole affair go toppling over the side.
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