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Updated: May 19, 2025
Seeing that we would not accept what he offered, the captain of the negroes went away, and caused all the boats to depart likewise, thinking perhaps that we would have followed and agreed to his terms; but on perceiving his drift, we hauled up our grapnel and went away likewise.
The boys looked over the side. As they did so they uttered simultaneous gasps of consternation. The trailing grapnel, for Tom had forgotten to tie it back in place in the excitement, had caught the farmer by the waistband of his overalls and he was being carried skyward by the Wondership, dangling at the end of the anchor rope like some sprawling spider.
With a pendulum-like swoop through the crowd, that sent people flying right and left the grapnel came to earth again, tried for and missed a stout gentleman in a blue suit and a straw hat, smacked away a trestle from under a stall of haberdashery, made a cyclist soldier in knickerbockers leap like a chamois, and secured itself uncertainly among the hind-legs of a sheep which made convulsive, ungenerous efforts to free itself, and was dragged into a position of rest against a stone cross in the middle of the place.
The tide was very low, the sun up bright and high, and the water so clear that there was every rock below us so close that it seemed as if we could not go over some of them without touching. "We'll row out to the buoyed grapnel," said Bigley; "make fast, and while you have your bathe I shall dive down, follow the rope, and see if I can find out how the grapnel has got fast." "If you can," I said.
I shook my head vigorously, and saying, "No more! no more!" threw myself over the wall, and seized the rope, Rectus holding the grapnel in its place as I did so. As I let myself down from knot to knot, a thought crossed my mind: "How are we going to get that grapnel after we both are down?" It was a frightening thought.
A hideous experience while it lasted, those vicious currents dragging the aerostat upward out of the air-chamber by means of grapnel and rope, then casting all far away in company with wrecked trees and bushes, and even solider materials, all shrouded for a time in dust and debris, which hindered the eyesight of both uncle and nephews.
Its smart impact upon the distant water reached their ears like a kiss, whereupon Yeobright knelt down, and leaning over the well began dragging the grapnel round and round as Fairway had done. "Tie a rope round him it is dangerous!" cried a soft and anxious voice somewhere above them. Everybody turned.
Fully realizing all the difficulties herein enumerated, it occurred to me that a grapnel might be constructed in such a manner as to automatically signal by electrical means the hooking of the cable, while it would ignore all strain that external causes might bring to bear on it, and thereby obviate the uncertainties attached to the use of the grapnels at present in vogue.
We had no time to reflect for to my surprise they filled their canoes with stones, and twelve men came off after us to renew the attack, which they did so effectually as nearly to disable us all. Our grapnel was foul but Providence here assisted us; the fluke broke and we got to our oars and pulled to sea.
Arrived on the reef over which, by the way, there was plenty of water, four fathoms being the least the party had ever found upon it the expectant sportsman dropped his grapnel, lowered the sail, and threw his lines overboard.
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