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Updated: May 15, 2025
Intense thanksgiving, a melting relief, robbed O'Reilly of half his strength; his hands were shaking, his muscles weak; he could barely bring his craft alongside. He saw black faces staring down, he heard cries of amazement and surprised inquiries, then a heaving-line came aboard and the leaky tub was drawn close. There was a babble of voices, shouted questions, hysterical answers.
A light heaving-line was quickly cleared away, and one end bent to a rope becket securely spliced to a small keg, which was then thrown overboard and allowed to drift down toward the wreck, the line being veered freely away at the same time.
"Keep her away a couple of points," commanded Captain Blyth; "and pass the word for the boatswain to muster all the light heaving-line he can lay his hands upon. Range yourselves fore and aft along the lee bulwarks, my lads, and let each one stand by to heave a rope's-end with a standing bowline in it as soon as we get near enough. How does he bear now, Williams?" "Straight ahead, sir.
"All right," I interrupted for time was precious "we will endeavour to get the end of a hawser aboard you. Have you any light heaving-line that you can veer down to us by means of a float? If so, get it ready, and we will try to pick it up on our return. We are now about to stand on and take room to wear, when we will come back and endeavour to establish a connection between the two craft.
He waved his megaphone in assent and then, levelling it at the yacht, he cried: "All right. Float a hawser down to us; you are pitching too wild-eyed to come within heaving-line distance." Passing the pilot-house on his way below, he nodded and smiled at the men inside. There had been no need to question them.
Then up came the little steamer, rolling and pitching heavily upon the long ground swell, sweeping round in a long curve that brought her all but alongside the wallowing ship; a brief interchange of hails between her bridge and the Concordia's poop, the sudden snaking out of a whirling heaving-line from the forecastle of the latter, followed by the thin but tremendously strong steel towing hawser; and as the few remaining sheets of the ship's canvas shrivelled in to the masts and yards the tug passed ahead, the towrope rose dripping out of the water, tautened to the semblance of a metal rod, and away went the two craft, heading for the middle of the space of water that divided the two breakwaters.
Have you nothing smaller that we can bend on to the eye of the hawser and use as a heaving-line?" "Certainly I have," replied the professor.
By dint of exhortation so earnest that it almost amounted to bullying I succeeded in awaking the Frenchmen to a sense of the urgency of the case, and persuaded them to put some liveliness into their movements, by which means we quickly hauled in the whole of the signal halliards, to the other end of which a light heaving-line was bent.
And if I succeed, bend the end of a heaving-line on to the other directly you see that I have got hold, and we will soon get the hawser aboard and the end made fast somewhere." The skipper looked at me fixedly for several seconds, as though mentally measuring my ability to execute the task I had offered to undertake.
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