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Updated: June 8, 2025
Every one was more eager than his neighbour to leap into the boats and it required a good deal of management on the part of the coxswains to get men unaccustomed to a boat to take their places for rowing and at the same time trimming her properly. The landing-master and foreman went into one boat, while the writer took charge of another, and steered it to and from the rock.
'Sheet home the foresail, and sit steady, my lads, said Roberts, 'and we'll soon be through! and they made for the dangerous broken water, which was now not more than twelve feet deep. The coxswains kept encouraging the men, 'Cheer up, my lads! And then, 'Look out, all hands!
The sterns of the two boats came together, and Frank threw Tony a line, which the latter made fast. "Ready down!" said Tony and Frank, almost in the same breath; and the oars were deposited in their places on the thwarts. The two clubs were facing each other as they sat in their seats, with the respective coxswains standing in the stern sheets. "Mr.
Whistle up the larboard watch, bo'sun, and tumble into the boats, all hands." Down splashed the long-boat and down splashed the gig, but in an instant the coxswains and crews were swarming up the falls on to the deck once more. "The boats are scuttled!" they cried. "They are leaking like a sieve." The captain gave a bitter curse. He had been beaten and outwitted at every point.
"Well, there wasn't anything strange about that," returned Rand, "if she was a good cook." "Or if her cooking was good," added Jack. "Are you ready, all?" now called the starter, and each one of the different crews grasped his oar with quickened tension as the coxswains responded: "Ready!" and there followed the sharp report of the pistol.
The long, graceful-looking boats, each with its crew of six, their anxious-faced coxswains crouched in the sterns, and tin flags bearing the numbers of their ships in the bows, were being shepherded into position. A tense silence was closing down on the spectators.
The crowd on the banks well knew the crisis, and shouted out their warnings and encouragements to the rival coxswains with redoubled eagerness. "Now then, Riddell! round you go! Pull your right!" "Steered indeed, Parrett's! Bravo, Parson!"
There was the "huge Chimaera" the "mighty Centaur" and possibly even the "dark-blue Scylla" with their modern counterparts of Gyas, Sergestus, and Cloanthus, bawling just as lustily as doubtless those coxswains of old shouted; no one, however, struck on the rocks, as we are told the unfortunate "Centaur" did.
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