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With a grating rush, the three lines flew round the loggerheads with such a force as to gouge deep grooves in them; while so fearful were the harpooneers that this rapid sounding would soon exhaust the lines, that using all their dexterous might, they caught repeated smoking turns with the rope to hold on; till at last owing to the perpendicular strain from the lead-lined chocks of the boats, whence the three ropes went straight down into the blue the gunwales of the bows were almost even with the water, while the three sterns tilted high in the air.
"'One, I heard him say, 'two, as his knife cut through the pulley ropes, and the next moment the exhaust stream had carried us clear, while boat 14 dropped into the water, into the space we had the moment before occupied, our gunwales almost touching. "We drifted away easily, as the oars were got out, and headed directly away from the ship.
Pitifully small was the boat for five and twenty. The sailors, desperate and selfish, leaped in first, and watched with jealous eyes the struggles of the passengers to follow. The noisy merchant slipped in the leap, and they heard him scream once as the wave swallowed him. Brasidas stood in the bow of the pinnace, clutching a sword to cut the last rope. The boat filled to the gunwales.
Stepping over the bracing-strips between the gunwales, she caught a swaying branch, and swung herself lightly ashore. Back from the water the ground rose into a low hill, covered with oak and elm and ragged hickory trees. Here, for a space, there was little undergrowth, and save under the heaviest of the trees the ground was green with short, coarse grass.
As far as Palajärvi we ran with our gunwales below the snow-level, while the foremost pulks were frequently swamped under the white waves that broke over them. We passed through a picturesque gorge between two hills about 500 feet high, and beyond it came upon wide lakes covered deep with snow, under which there was a tolerable track, which the leading deer was able to find with his feet.
"Got it, hey?" he remarked, nodding with approval as Blunt's boat hauled the great anchor dripping between his boat and Rolfe's, where the mate's crew made it fast, swinging on both gunwales by a baulk of timber laid across, ready to be either let go again, or taken under the brigantine's bows and hove up with the windlass.
Somewhere above in the viewless void an aura grew and spread into a blinding glory; and all around, once more, the fog turned into floating golden vapour shot with rain. The girl placed both hands on the gunwales as though preparing to rise. "Not yet!" said Hamil sharply.
She will be much stronger than either of any other canoes, because few men would like a canoe so frail and limber that she can be sprung inward by hand pressure on the gunwales, as easily as a hat-box. And many men are clumsy or careless with a boat, while others are lubberly by nature.
Each formed the side of a boat, which was built by tying two gunwales together with cross timbers, the whole being then planked. Such boats were three or four times as large as those used for the country ferries upon the Gauley and New rivers, and enabled us to make these larger ferries very commodious.
So uncomfortably apt was his simile that the others grimaced and turned their eyes elsewhere until the savage meal was finished. Then their attention became riveted on a queer proceeding at the canoe wherein Yuara had journeyed yesterday. To the gunwales amidships two of the men fastened a couple of small crotched posts.
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