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Updated: May 6, 2025
So far, so good; the most difficult part of my task was now accomplished; for I knew that Murgatroyd would attend to the work at his end of the hawser, and do everything that was necessary; so I turned to the Frenchman who had assisted me aboard, and said: "Are you the master of this barque, monsieur?" "At your service, monsieur," he answered, bowing with all the grace of a dancing-master.
These facts induced the hope that he might separate the hawser that alone held the brigantine, which, in the event of his succeeding, he had every reason to believe would drift ashore, before the alarm could be given to her crew, sail set, or an anchor let go.
Outside the heads, as if to meet my desire, we found it blowing fresh from the north-east. No time had been lost. The sun was not yet up before the tug cast off the hawser, gave us a salute of three whistles, and turned homeward toward the coast, which now began to gleam along its margin with the earliest rays of day.
But that was nothing. There were several portraits of distinguished public characters here; and among others, Hawser Trunnion, a British admiral. I must say that the old commodore looked uncommonly well, with his flowing wig, just as Smollett describes it, and a pipe in his mouth. We had ordered supper at seven; at half-past seven we reached the hotel, and found the meal ready.
David swayed slightly, crushing the body in his arms till it seemed every rib must break; then hurled it from him with all the might of passion. The little man fell with a crash and a groan. The blaze in the corner flared, flickered, and died. There was hell-black darkness, and silence of the dead. David stood against the wall, panting, every nerve tightstrung as the hawser of a straining ship.
Forking out, however, directly over where I clung desperately to the wet hawser, my eyes were able to trace the bow-sprit, a massive bit of timber, with ropes faintly traced against the sky, the rather loosely furled jib flapping ragged edges in the gusts of wind.
This second hawser should be hauled tight round at the end of each successive quarter-turn gained by the men.
The journey, though short, was fraught with the utmost peril; for it being impossible to keep the hawser strained taut, the poor unfortunate wretches had to be dragged through rather than over the surf; and when all was ready the women, who were of course to go first, found their courage fail them.
The line was then taken forwards by Tim Rooney outside the rigging, he walking along the gunwale till he gained the forecastle; there, another man then lending a hand, the line was hauled in with the end of a strong steel hawser bent on to it, that had been already passed over the stern of the tug, and the bight carried across the "towing-horse" and firmly fastened to the tug's fore-deck, while our end on reaching the forecastle of the Silver Queen was similarly secured inboard, Tim satisfying himself that it was taut by jumping on it.
Then he went resolutely down into the cabin, facing the future. John Woolfolk woke in the night, listened for a moment to the straining hull and wind shrilling aloft, and then rose and went forward again to examine the mooring. A second hawser now reached into the darkness. Halvard had been on deck and put out another anchor.
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