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Updated: April 30, 2025
Smoke curled up from among the rocks of the islet. The man at the helm and the man with the lead-line fell backwards into the boat. Ayrton's and Pencroft's balls had struck them both at the same moment.
"Well, go up into my room, and hanging on the nail behind the door you will see a lead-line bring it me down here." I did so, and then Bramble explained to me how the fathoms were marked on the line, and how the soundings were given out.
At first our seamen thought she had been becalmed by the swell; but the change about themselves was too obvious to admit of any mistake. It blew terribly, again, for a minute; then there was another lull. Gardiner sprang to the lead-line to see the effect on his own vessel. She no longer dragged her anchor! "God is with us!" exclaimed the young master "blessed for ever be his holy name."
I was sorry to be leaving. When the winch began to clank, as the cable was hove in, I gathered up my lead-line, and went to the leadsman's dicky, or little projecting platform, on the starboard side. I was to be the leadsman that night, and as we should soon be moving, I made the breast-rope secure, and stood by.
Her top-masts were gone, and she was pitching and rising without appearing to advance under her courses and storm staysails. "There she is, sir," said Mr Wilson; "and if the gale lasts, good-bye to her." "If the gale lasts, Mr Wilson," said I in a low voice, "I suspect you may sing our requiem as well; but we must trust to Heaven and our own exertions. Pass along the lead-line, Mr Hawkins."
"By the mark two," reported Felix, as he drew up the line. "Twelve feet; we have not much to spare under the keel," added the captain. "We had fourteen feet when we anchored, and the tide has been ebbing five hours." "Hold on, Captain Scott!" shouted Felix, as he carried the lead-line to the other side of the vessel. "I have been measuring on the top of a bulging rock. And a half two!"
The steering-gear leaked steam, and in the confined space the glass of the binnacle made a shiny oval of light in a thin white fog. The wind howled, hummed, whistled, with sudden booming gusts that rattled the doors and shutters in the vicious patter of sprays. Two coils of lead-line and a small canvas bag hung on a long lanyard, swung wide off, and came back clinging to the bulkheads.
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