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She required good steering. Aye, and careful watching too, on the part of the helmsman; for, in addition to the natural turnings and windings of the channel-way, which were many, the Thames curving about and twisting itself into the shape of a corkscrew between London Bridge and the Nore, the tug had besides continually to alter her course, thus, naturally, making us change ours too, as the tow-rope slackening one moment would cause the ship's bows to fall off, and then tightening like a fiddle-string the next instant her head would be jerked back again viciously into its former position, right astern of the little vessel at whose mercy we were, as if she insisted on the Silver Queen following obediently in her wake.
Now the fish was leaping wildly from side to side, zig-zagging, shaking at the hook as a bull-dog shakes an old boot. The leather cord hummed through the water, ripping and vibrating, taut as a fiddle-string. A long, silvery line of bubbles followed the vibrant cord. Flash!
Times of tension and endurance which told upon them all, but bore most heavily on Gard, since the onslaught, when it came, must fall upon him, and the absolute ignorance as to how and when and whence it might come, kept every nerve within him strung like a fiddle-string.
However, had he even steered directly for the shore the commander was answerable, Terence knew too well. In vain the crew laboured away at the capstan till the hawser was taut as a fiddle-string; not an inch would the ship budge. The master suggested that by heaving the guns and stores overboard she might be got off.
And I heard one say to another: 'Hey, Boney, d'you feel like someone was a-buzzin' your nerves like a fiddle-string? Now," demanded Edwards plaintively, "what right has a jackie to have nerves?" "That's strange enough about the compass," said Barnett slowly. "Ours is all right again. The schooner must have been so near the electric disturbance that her instruments were permanently deranged."
The engineer whistled answer and stood to his levers; the main line began to spool slowly in on the drum. Another signal, and he shut off. Another signal, after a brief wait, and the drum rolled faster, the line tautened like a fiddle-string, and the ponderous machine vibrated with the strain of its effort. Suddenly the line came slack.
Still holding fast to the forceps, the King and his army marched into the Valley, and away across it, and up the hills on the other side, not even stopping to take breath. When they came to the mountains and the forests, and could go no farther, they looked back; and behold! the Dragon had stretched out so far that it was now no bigger around than a fiddle-string!
Larry took the child in his arms, every muscle and every nerve in her slight body taut as a fiddle-string. He smoothed her hair gently and began to talk quietly with her. "What good times we have had!" he said. "I remember well the very first night I saw you. Do you?" "Oh," she breathed, "don't speak of it, or I can't hold in."
The attention strained to hear and comprehend, and on the very verge of comprehension snapped like a fiddle-string. "Nicoea!" The word remained like a little ash after a flare. The sleeper had awakened and lay very still, oppressed by a sense of intellectual effort that had survived the dream in which it had arisen. Was it so that things had happened?
"'What do you want me to do? says he. His voice sounded as if he had the croup. "'Ladies, says I, 'you may believe it or not, but if Brother Terrapin has a mind to he can lend me a treble string that will just fit my fiddle. "'Brother Rabbit, says he, 'you know I have no fiddle-string. What would I be doing with one? "'Don't mind him, ladies.
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