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Updated: June 6, 2025
Suddenly, however, a peculiar sound was heard, as of a chain running out. The boatswain rushed forward, and I followed him; but we were only just in time to see the end of the chain cables flying through the hawse-holes, and away the ship drifted out of the harbour. "That did not happen by chance," exclaimed Tarbox; "it is the work of those Lascars.
These slings were the chains of the schooner, one of which went under her keel, while for the other the captain trusted to the strength of the two hawse-holes, having passed the cable out of one and in at the other, in a way to serve his purposes, as has just been stated. When all was ready, Spike mustered his crew, and made a speech.
Literally within a hundred feet of us, was a large ship, ploughing the ocean with a furrow that rose to her hawse-holes, and piling before her, in her track, a mound of foam, as she came down upon us, with top-mast and lower studding-sails set overshadowing the sea, like some huge cloud. There was scarcely time for more than a glance, ere this ship was nearly upon us.
"Now, my boys," said Curtis in his calm clear voice, "all together! Off!" Round went the windlass; click, click, clanked the chains as link by link they were forced through the hawse-holes. The breeze freshened, and the masts gave to the pressure of the sails, but round and round we went, keeping time in regular monotony to the sing-song tune hummed by one of the sailors.
"Oh, very well; that's it, then. Stow all that talking, mate, and let's have a go at 'em again. Strikes me we'd better drive 'em overboard this time." "Ay, but then they'd come up through the keel or in at the hawse-holes," growled Tom Fillot. "Silence!" said Mark, sharply. "Who else is down here?" "There's me," said Stepney. "Fillot, Stepney, Bannock, and the black, isn't it?" "Ay, ay, sir.
Then, as a steed shaking his mane after a shower, she throws the briny water off, through hawse-holes and scuppers, till her decks are clear again. A cry of relief ascends from the crew, instinctive and simultaneous.
Once clear of the Golden Gate, she stood over toward the Cliff House, then on the next tack cleared Point Bonita. The sea began building up in deadly earnest they were about to cross the bar. Everything was battened down, the scuppers were awash, and the hawse-holes spouted like fountains after every plunge.
The ebb-tide returned, rushing down with the current of the river with such overwhelming velocity, that we expected the vessel would be torn from her moorings. Two men were placed at the helm to keep her steady, but, in spite of their utmost exertions, she was dashed from side to side like a feather, while the current pitched into her till the water entered the hawse-holes.
Oh, how anxiously we watched the noble fabric as she ponderously ploughed her way obliquely toward us over the liquid ridges, now plunging to her hawse-holes and rolling heavily to leeward as she dived into the trough, and anon raising her dripping bows, richly carved and gilt, high in air as she slowly climbed to the surge's crest!
As if in reply to the sailor's observation, a bright light flashed in the darkness, and a cannon-shot was heard. The vessel was still there and had guns on board. Six seconds elapsed between the flash and the report. Therefore the brig was about a mile and a quarter from the coast. At the same time, the chains were heard rattling through the hawse-holes.
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