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An engine tooted, cables creaked, and down the greased way slid the ship, with a dip and a heave when she hit the water that made big waves on either side and set the canoes to rocking madly, while the crowd cheered and shouted. After the launching, the schooners were towed out to sea, and down the coast, to be fitted elsewhere.
Coventry; who tells me of the foul weather they had last Sunday, that drove them back from near Boulogne, whither they were going for the Queen, back again to the Downs, with the loss of their cables, sayles, and masts; but are all safe, only my Lord Sandwich, who went before with the yachts; they know not what is become of him, which do trouble me much; but I hope he got ashore before the storm begun; which God grant!
The game consists of a number of persons seizing hold of these cables, running round the mast until sufficient impetus is acquired, and then swinging through the air in a circle.
Accordingly about ten or eleven o'clock P.M. our boats were sent well manned to cut their cables and hawsers and tow them out to sea. On coming to them, one of the largest of these ships was found to be the Falcon of London, commanded by a Scots pilot who passed her off as his own.
The extreme point of palms they had just passed enclosed a creek, which was thus hidden up to the last moment from the eyes of those on board; and from this a boat put suddenly and briskly out, and a voice hailed. "Schooner ahoy!" it cried. "Stand in for the pier! In two cables' lengths you'll have twenty fathoms water and good holding-ground."
"O. K., Doc," and it was done; and in a few days the Procyon hung motionless, a good five hundred miles high, directly above the highest, sharpest mountain peak they had been able to find. The Bailey boom, with its spider-web-like network of grounding cables and with a large pulley at its end, extended two hundred feet straight out from the side of the ship.
There he inquired for Clifford Matheson, and was informed that the financier was in Winnipeg. "You're certain of that?" asked Rivière. "Quite, sir!" answered the clerk in surprise. "We get cables from him giving addresses to send letters to. If you'd like anything forwarded, sir, leave it here and we shall attend to it."
Eager hands drew it, yet it seemed mounting as a snail, till at the masthead the clear wind blew it wide,—a plain red banner, but as it spread hundreds of axes were hewing the cables that bound the triremes to the shore, every Greek oar was biting the sea, the ships were leaping away from Salamis.
If the wind hauls round a couple of points we may clear them, but it isn't going to; and we'll get smothered in the seas in another ten minutes if the cables don't part before then. Seldom was a ship sent to destruction in such a short time as the Leonora.
The chain broke soon after being placed in position. Near Forts Jackson and Philip, below New Orleans, the Rebels constructed a boom to oppose the progress of Farragut's fleet. A large number of heavy anchors, with the strongest cables, were fixed in the river. For a time the boom answered the desired purpose.
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