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The great difficulty that we now anticipated was that of unhooking the falls with certainty and promptitude the moment that the boats should reach the water; but our captain provided for that by slinging the boats by strops and toggles attached to the ordinary fall-blocks.
Rooum put the brakes down and reversed; again came the thud of the fall-blocks; and we were speeding back again over the gulf of misty orange light. The stagings were thronged with gaping men. "Ready? Now!" I cried to Hopkins; and we sprang into the cab. Hopkins hit Rooum's wrist with a spanner. Then he seized the lever, jammed the brake down and tripped Rooum, all, as it seemed, in one movement.
"Then," I snapped, "in that particular I'm as ignorant as you, and I hope it's the only one." But he grabbed my arm. "Look at it now!" he cried, pointing; and I looked up. Either Hopkins or somebody was dangerously exceeding the speed-limit. The thing was flying along its thirty yards of rail as fast as a tram, and the heavy fall-blocks swung like a ponderous kite-tail, thirty feet below.
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