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I also took notice of a pair of davits on the starboard side, past the main rigging; they were empty. "I stepped up to the heavily-built man who had answered the captain's questions. He received me with a grotesque bow, pinching the brim of his wide straw hat as he bobbed his head. I did not like his looks. He had as hanging a face as ever a malefactor carried.
Then the debris descended, and Cappy, choked with salt water, dimly realized that Terence Reardon had him in his arms and was carrying him down to the boat deck, where the motor lifeboat swung wide in the davits.
The next day the whole crew were busily employed in getting the whale boats ready and the gear fitted. There were seven boats in all three slung to the davits on each side, and one over the stern, with a harpooner to each.
It was only later, when upon the white flash of another high sea hurling itself amidships, Jukes had a vision of two pairs of davits leaping black and empty out of the solid blackness, with one overhauled fall flying and an iron-bound block capering in the air, that he became aware of what had happened within about three yards of his back.
At each roll of the steamer we seemed to be at the bottom of a huge emerald pit. Suddenly some one yelled, "There she goes!" and that second the boat was dragged down, down, down. An immense wave had caught us, rolled us so far over that our dory in davits had filled with water to the brim.
Then turning to those behind him: "Lower that boat quick!" The davits creaked and groaned as the ropes spun through the blocks; there was a big splash when the boat struck the water, a few fierce strokes of the oars, and then a glad shout of, "All right; we've got them," in response to which cheer upon cheer rang out from the throng above, now relieved from their intense anxiety.
The MACQUARIE was struck so violently that it seemed as if her keel had touched the rocks. There was no real danger, but the heavy vessel did not rise easily to the waves. By and by the returning waves would break over the deck in great masses. The boat was washed out of the davits by the force of the water. John Mangles never released his watch.
They'll blaze away for the rest of the day, growled another of the smugglers. 'Why, Lor' bless ye, it's good exercise for the crew, and the 'munition is the King's, so it don't cost nobody a groat. 'It's well the breeze freshened, said Long John. 'I heard the creak o' davits just after the first discharge. She was lowering her boats, or I'm a Dutchman.
He found a tin can possibly left in a leaky boat before its final hoist to the davits and gave her a drink, to which he had added a few drops of the whisky. Then he thought of breakfast.
The officer of the watch, however, had already made preparations to this end, the first cutter's crew having been piped and the men standing ready by the davits to lower her into the water, with the gripes cast off and the falls cleared. "All ready there, coxsun, eh?" he cried; and then, without waiting for any answer, he sang out, "Lower away!"
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