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This battleship has entered the war zone, en route to a certain rendezvous, whence all the American units will proceed to their ultimate destination in company. It is night. It is a black night. The stars are viewless and the ocean through which the great steel hull is rushing, with only a slight hiss where the sharp cutwater parts the waves, is merely a part of the same gloom.
She fairly raced along, dragging astern the jolly-boat, which we had taken in tow, the little craft leaving a curly wave in front of her cutwater, higher than her bows, and looking as if it were on the point of pouring over on top of those in her.
For some minutes no sound was heard save the regular rattle of the oars in the rowlocks, the swish of the foam as it flew from the cutwater, and the occasional sob or gasp of the men as they exerted themselves to the utmost limit of their powers in the hopeless pursuit. Suddenly Teddy Malone cried eagerly, "Look out astarn!"
"Let her claw off," returned the old man sternly. "Her cutwater is up with it already. Let her claw off." The bows of the ship were certainly up with the danger, and the vessel was slowly drawing ahead; but every moment its broadside was set nearer to the rock, which was now within fifty feet of them. The fore-chains were past the point, though little hope remained of clearing it abaft.
So distinct at this time was the line drawn between the sailing vessel and the galley that the actual terminology used was entirely different; that is to say, the names of such things as masts, sails, rudder, tiller, stern, stempost, cutwater, etc., were not the same words; the sailor who used sails could not understand his brother mariner who used oars, and vice versa.
There are men who pause before the old Admiral and see the cutwater of men-of-war's bows and hear the singing of the signal halyards as they rise with the command to close in. Perhaps the Eternal Painter had put a little of his soul into the heart of Jack; for some busy marchers of the Avenue trail as they glanced at him saw the free desert and heard hoof-beats in the sand.
"Never seed such a devil of a cutwater in my life, father." "Well, then, you'll see a larger when he gets up, for it's swelled bigger than the brandy bottle. Heave and haul! Now bring to the fall, and up with the mast, boys, while I goes aft and takes the helm." Old Tom went aft.
For the next three or four minutes Duff kept his eye upon the advancing line, behind which a sea of steely ripples danced in the sunlight. The cruiser, slowly heeling to leeward, veered her bow round to her course, and Duff could see the dash of water about her cutwater as she forged ahead.
One of the foretopmen who hailed from Newfoundland was an expert with the harpoon, spearing with that weapon as many dolphins as he liked; these beggars being in the habit of plying to and fro under the corvette's cutwater as she sailed onward, delighting apparently in showing us the dexterity with which they could wheel about and leap athwart the ship's course as they pleased, keeping up with her or going ahead according to their bent.
Out of the east also poured a flood of light from the huge ball of the rising sun, and now it was that Morris learned why the gloom had been so thick about him, for his boat lay anchored full in the shadow of the lost ship Trondhjem. There, not thirty yards away, rose her great prow; the cutwater, which stood up almost clear, showing that she had forced herself on to a ridge of rock.
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