United States or Austria ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Meanwhile Nilsson had made a running bowline in the end of a loose halyard that was rove through a block aloft, and had been used for hoisting out the cargo. As the mandarin came up, he leaned over the coaming of the hatch, dropped the noose over the Chinaman's head, jerked it tight, and then he and Foucault hove on the fall of the rope.
Then she placed the small bundle beside her, and hurriedly took the rag-doll from her pocket, into which it was stuffed head down, pulled its calico skirt from over its head, propped it up against the coaming of the door, and told it not to be afraid.
The next moment I sprang, fell into the sea, was caught by the collar as my hand grasped the cockpit coaming, and so I slid in, somehow, over the end deck, and caught the end of the painter from John's hand and cast her free. The drift carried us off at once, and the next wave almost hid the hull of the Belle Helène. I knew at once we were powerless, and that our one hope lay in drifting ashore.
Number Eight's crew had been at this pleasant occupation for about an hour, with the cheerful prospect of another hour of the same diversion. "Hay" was running the steam winch, "Stump" was pulling the baskets over the hatch coaming as they were hauled up by the winch, and the other five were carrying. "Say, this is deadly slow, tiresome work," said "Flagg," who was carrying with me.
Those who had first seized the coaming strove to spring on deck, while those below grasped them fast; and few only succeeded in freeing themselves in the struggle, which seemed for existence.
So White crept noiselessly up the companion ladder and peeped cautiously out. Arsenic still squatted where Cabot had left him, gazing idiotically off into space. At the same time a close observer might have imagined that his beady eyes twinkled with a gleam of interest as White's head appeared above the companion coaming. "I guess it is all right," said White, rejoining his friend.
It was like going from the day into the night at one jump; but, after fumbling after my leader for a step or two, almost feeling my way and stumbling over the coaming at the entrance, placed there to prevent the water the ship might take in over the side when at sea from washing in from the main-deck, I all at once found myself in a wide saloon stretching the whole length of the after part of the ship, with a series of small cabins on either side and two larger ones at the end occupying the stern-sheets.
Everything in her creaked; the floorings sloped away beneath Evelyn's feet, and now the madly-whirling froth poured in across the coaming. The veins stood out on the helmsman's forehead, his pose betrayed the tension on his arms; but the sloop was swinging round, and she fell off before the wind when the upper half of the great sail collapsed.
She met the short, splashing head sea with streaming bow, and the sliding froth crept farther and farther up her lee deck as she smashed through it. Then as the water found its way over the coaming and poured down into her, Stirling glanced at his companion. "Got all the sail she wants?" he asked. "Is she fit to stand much more of it?"
A tall dark man, wearing an ancient palmleaf hat, sat smoking on the hatch coaming, and him Neils Halvorsen addressed. "Aye bane want to see Cap'n Scraggs," he said. The tall dark man stood erect and cast a quick, questioning look at Neils Halvorsen. He hesitated before he made answer. "What do you want?" he asked deliberately, and there was a subtle menace in his tones.