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Updated: June 28, 2025
The gun was sponged, loaded, and again fired, and this time the shot hulled the frigate fair and square, striking her about a foot below the larboard hawse-pipe. "Now," remarked the skipper, "try her again, my fine fellow. You ought to do something worth the powder this time."
The convoy was to sail on the following day but one; the men-o'-war which constituted their escort were already in the Sound, along with several other ships of the royal navy; and as the cable smoked out through the Aurora's hawse-pipe that evening, when she dropped her anchor, George fondly hoped his troubles were at an end. But he was mistaken.
So the cable was roused on deck and bent on to the best bower, the ship making short reaches to the northward and southward meanwhile; and as soon as everything was ready a position was taken as nearly as possible midway between the reefs, and the anchor let go in twelve fathoms of water, with sixty fathoms of chain outside the hawse-pipe.
The anchor then splashed down to the accompaniment of a roar of chain-cable through the hawse-pipe the captain's gig was lowered away; and a few minutes later that individual was being pulled across the short space of water between his own ship and the Blanco Encalada.
Boats, canoes, and taumualuas by the score, all crowded with natives, who were shouting themselves hoarse, paddled furiously off to the ship; and ere her cable rattled through the hawse-pipe and the heavy anchor plunged down to its coral bed, her decks were filled with people, and Raymond, followed by the old chief Malie, was shaking hands warmly with "the missing princess" and her rescuer.
In the hawse-pipe the grinding links sent through the ship a sound like a low groan of a man sighing under a burden. The strain came on the windlass, the chain tautened like a string, vibrated and the handle of the screw-brake moved in slight jerks. Singleton stepped forward.
The men were just in the act of laying in off the yards, when a little puff of wind coming down the harbour caught the frigate's bow, and to our great gratification paid her head round until her fore-foot scraped off the bank. The order was at once given to let go the anchor; the cable smoked out through the hawse-pipe, and the ship swung round, head to wind.
He had been a sailor almost all his life, having "crept in through the hawse-pipe" when he was only twelve years old; since when, by close application and perseverance, he had gradually worked his way aft to the quarter-deck.
"Yes, yes the old Circe; I could tell her in a thousand.... She's slowing down to anchor; and see, there's the gold anchor on her flag! Listen, now ... there goes!..." Through the open doorway, across the clear water, their ears caught the splash of a dropped anchor, and the music of its chain running through the hawse-pipe. The Commandant rapped the table.
In action, take an old sailor's advice. Keep the weather-gauge and board! Tell that to your admiral on the day of battle. Whisper it in his ear. Say to him, 'Keep the weather-gauge and board! Tell him also to strike quick, strike hard, and keep on striking. That's the word of Christopher Mings, and a better man has not been launched, though he did climb in through the hawse-pipe.
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