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"Getting the reputation is the up-hill time in most things, captain." "It's so. It ain't enough to know how to reef a gasket, you got to make the mate know you know it. That's reputation. The good word, said at the right time, that's the word that makes us; and evil be to him that evil thinks, as Isaiah says." "It's very relevant, and hits the point exactly," said Tracy.
With a convulsive movement he grasped at a loose gasket above him, and catching a grip, wound it twice or thrice round his arm. The strain was intense; the gasket was thin and cut deeply into the flesh; he knew that should it give way nothing could save him.
A moment later it came to a shuddering stop at the base of the giant rocket cruiser. "All right," said Vidac. "Get them aboard the ship. Hardy will blow a gasket if we don't get this over with in a hurry." Hardy! The name hit Tom like a trip hammer. So Hardy was mixed up in it!
Here, still faint and dizzy, he hung with the footrope jammed against his heel, as he felt for the gasket that held the canvas to the yard. Swinging through the blackness across a space of tumbling foam he felt a horrible unsteadiness.
The cockswain gave the usual reply of an obedient seaman; but before he left the hedge, he stretched out one of his brawny arms towards the ocean, and said, in tones of solemnity suited to his apprehensions and character: "I showed you how to knot a reef-point, and pass a gasket, Captain Barnstable, nor do I believe you could even take two half-hitches when you first came aboard of the Spalmacitty.
Not a voice was heard, and every man quietly awaited his order, looking abashed that there had been a tongue heard save his who had the right alone to speak. "Cast the gasket off the foot of the fore and aft foresail." "Ay, ay, sir!" responded the mate, who having secured the rudder, now hastened by his commander, followed by a dozen hands, to execute the order. "Haul the sheet to port!"
He was dangling at the end of a gasket, and bouncing up and down on the taut belly of the sail as the ship rose and fell to the send of the sea. "The two survivors were now in some doubt about having anything further to do with the pearl. But the great value of the jewel, and the consideration that it was now to be divided between two instead of four, tempted them.
The seaman on watch continued only two hours; he who kept watch at this time was a tall, slender man of a black complexion; he had no greatcoat nor over-all of any kind, but was simply dressed in his ordinary jacket and trousers; his hat was tied under his chin with a napkin, and he stood aft the foremast, to which he had lashed himself with a gasket or small rope round his waist, to prevent his falling upon deck or being washed overboard.
The villainous face of Ned Gasket passed before his memory mockingly; the meaning look McTurpin gave his henchman at the gaming table. Finally, with double force, that movement in the bushes as he told the gambler of his former captive's whereabouts. By what absurd imprudence had he laid himself thus open to the scoundrel's swift attack?
It was a precarious position and one that the motion of the yacht made but briefly tenable. Satisfied that the dark object was a reality and not an unwonted visitation, the lookout began deliberately to unloosen a gasket. Moments might be eternity to the man below, but Muscovite slowness is not to be hurried.
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