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The men had hurried through their dinner, for they knew that the time allowed them would be short, and began casting off hawsers, coiling down ropes, and preparing for a start. The bell was ringing, and the friends of the passengers were saying good-bye. The capstan was manned, and the vessel moved slowly away from the quay.
And they were already about to cast from the ship the hawsers to the shore, had not Thracian Orpheus, son of Oeagrus, stringing in his hands his Bistonian lyre, rung forth the hasty snatch of a rippling melody so that their ears might be filled with the sound of his twanging; and the lyre overcame the maidens' voice.
Struggles for mastery. Author saves boatman. Fifteen-knot current. Terrific labor on shore. Man nearly falls overboard. Straining hawsers carry us over safely. The merriment among the men. The thundering cataract. Trackers' chanting. Their life. "Pioneer" at the Yeh T'an. The Buffalo Mouth Reach. Story of the "Woodlark." How she was saved. Arrival at Kweifu. Difficulty in landing.
The Eastport hung nearly three days on the rocks in imminent peril, and at last had to be hauled off by main force, a whole brigade swaying on her hawsers to the rhythm of the field music.
So while they stared at the second hands of their watches the minutes crept away Pete wound his watch up tight in the vain hope of making it go a little faster and at last Bannon turned with a nod to the superintendent. "All right," he said. "You're the boss now." And then in a moment the straining hawsers were hauling cars up into the house.
Two kedges were got on deck, and hawsers were bent to them; the inner ends of the hawsers were bent, in their turns, to the crowns of the anchors, and everything was got ready to throw them overboard at the proper moment. These preparations completed, Jasper's manner changed from the excitement of exertion to a look of calm but settled concern.
There was a moderately good rise and fall of tide, judging from the marks on the beach, and the northern shore was undoubtedly the one that would be chosen by Cavendish for careening his vessels, as the ground sloped steeply but evenly, the sand was firm and hard, and the trunks of the palm-trees would be very useful for securing the hawsers, by means of which they would heave the vessels down on their beam-ends.
There being too much wind for towing the praams in the usual way, they were warped to the rock in the most laborious manner by their windlasses, with successive grapplings and hawsers laid out for this purpose.
In the Night the Bend of the Hawsers of the Stream Anchor Slip'd owing to the Carelessness of the Person who made it fast. In the Morning hove up the Anchor in the Boat and carried it out to the Southward. In heaving the Anchor out of the Boat Mr. Weir, Master's Mate, was carried overboard by the Buoy rope and to the Bottom with the Anchor.
As before stated, she towered so high out of the water and her sides were so bare that the Spaniards, small as was their number, could effectually resist all our efforts to capture her by boarding; to fire into and sink her would only result in the destruction of all the slaves on board her; and as she was moored with heavy chains, instead of hemp hawsers, to cut her adrift and let her ground upon the island was quite as impracticable as would have been any attempt to board her.
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