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The heavy hawser splashed overboard and the schooner staggered away rather drunkenly at first, tacking among the larger craft anchored out there in the harbor. The wind was not a very helpful one and soon after midnight it fell almost calm. There were only light airs to urge the Seamew on.
Signal is again made to the shore, and the men of the coastguard at once set up a triangle with a pendent block, through which the shore-end of the hawser is rove, and attached to a double-block tackle. Previously, however, a block called a "traveller" has been run on to the hawser. This block travels on and above the hawser, and from it is suspended the lifebuoy.
Now muckle onto this line, everybody, and haul in! They've got a hawser bent on the other end." A glance toward the yacht told that he was right. It also told that the peril of her human freight was greater than ever. Each sea, raising her slightly, dropped her back with her decks at a sharper angle toward the land. The grinding of the rocks through her steel side could be distinctly heard.
After the last shot, when Captain Jensen had brought the Deliverance broadside to the bank, the hippo ceased to move. The boat had not reached the shore before the boys with the steel hawser were in the water; the gangplank was run out, and the black soldiers and wood boys, with their knives, were dancing about the hippo and hacking at his tail.
"Cable" is from the Semitic root kebel, to cord, and is the same in all nautical uses. "Hawser" once written halser is from the Baltic stock, the rope used for halsing or hauling along; while "painter," the small rope by which a boat is temporarily fastened, is Irish, from painter, a snare. "Sheet" is Italian, from scotta; "brace" French, and "stay" English.
"It would take her a week to cut a hawser like that," said Elizabeth, who had been investigating. "It would be more to the purpose, I think, to chop it in two with an axe." "Very well," replied Mrs. Noah, satisfied. "I don't care how it is done as long as it is done quickly. It would never do for us to be recaptured now."
The passage was a terrific experience though the distance between the cross-trees and the top of the cliff was not great. Neither the girl nor the skipper spoke a word. He held her tight and she hid her face against his shoulder. Fifteen of the men, under the orders of Bill Brennen, held the shore-end of the hawser.
It was decided to drop down a little distance below the place and tie up, for as some of their provision were already getting low, it would be necessary to go ashore and lay in more bread at least. When a jutting point shut out the last of the town lights, they poled in closer to the shore, and began to cast about for some friendly tree to which the hawser could be attached.
They seemed afraid, and became less troublesome. In the afternoon of January 2nd, the parties who have the hawser brought it to me; but I would have nothing to do with it. I told them if Pouairo, the settlement of the man who was shot, determines to attack us, let them come, we, too, can fight.
If they were to go into a warm climate, they would all die of the scurvy. The vessel was no better than the crew. Everything was in the oldest and most inconvenient fashion possible; running trusses on the yards, and large hawser cables, coiled all over the decks, and served and parcelled in all directions.
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