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Updated: May 27, 2025
And thus a time passed, in which the men left us alone, and went presently to the capstan, about which they had taken the big rope, and at this they toiled awhile; for already the ship had moved sufficiently to let the line fall slack.
"It came on to blow when we fetched soundin's, an' that kept me standin' by the hawsers, lashed to the capstan, breathin' twixt green seas. I near died o' cauld an' hunger, for the Grotkau towed like a barge, an' Bell howkit her along through or over. It was vara thick up-Channel, too.
"I didn't like to tell, you being my uncle and over Mr Capstan," said Teddy; "I thought it would be mean." "It is never mean to complain of injustice," replied Uncle Jack gravely; "still, the matter now rests with the skipper." Captain Lennard gave the boys a good talking to for running away, saying that it wasn't manly for young sailors to shirk their work in that way for any reason.
I saw the trees swaying, though there was no wind, and a building fell down near the water. Then Stevey Todd whirled around and flung up his hands. "Oh!" he says; "Oh! Oh!" I never saw a scareder cook, for he dropped on the deck, and clapped his legs around a capstan and screamed, "Lord! Lord!" For the whole Pacific Ocean appeared to be heaving out its chest and coming on, eighty feet high.
You'll send out an anchor and haul upon it with the capstan." "Wouldn't be any good, sir. We're fast in the sand upon an upright keel, and until the water rises after a storm here we stick." "But you talked about throwing over some of the ballast to lighten the vessel if a case like this occurred," said Brace. "Yes, squire, that would do perhaps; but what then? Go back?"
The eye-end of the hawser splashed up the shoal water, was wrapped securely, but in sorry landsman's fashion, about the big roots, and in response to a howl of triumph from the shore, Barry sang out: "After capstan here! Get a strain on the line, Mr. Rolfe!"
Another thing to be noted is that all sails without exception have bamboo reefing battens, which although destroying the smooth set of the canvas are infinitely superior to our reefing points, inasmuch as the largest sail can be reefed from deck, or rather reefs itself, just as quickly as the capstan can lower it, and without that hard work, waste of time and risk which going aloft or along the spars in bad weather necessarily entails.
Big Chief made no reply. As he appeared to be lost in meditation, Jarwin sat down, and in a species of desperation, began to bellow with all the strength of his lungs one of those nautical ditties with which seamen are wont to enliven the movements of the windlass or the capstan.
Every individual, excepting the commander and his associate, was now earnestly engaged in getting the ship under way. The sounds of "we're away" were repeated by a burst from fifty voices, and the rapid evolutions of the capstan announced that nothing but the weight of the anchor was to be lifted.
He did not bring those uncouth vermiculations to a stop until he was well back in the shelter of a rusty capstan, cut off from the light by a lifeboat swinging on its davits. As he clambered to his feet again he saw this light suddenly go out and then reappear. As it did so he could make out a patrol-boat, gray and low-bodied, slinking forward through the gloom.
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