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Updated: June 21, 2025
It quite broke down our tent, and it took us some hours' hard work, using broken oar-blades for shovels, to dig away the immense heap of frozen debris that the unexpected slip of the accumulation on the top of the cliff had caused. Really, if the avalanche had fallen when we were all inside and asleep, perhaps not one of us would have escaped alive, as it must have been many tons in weight!
Presently they saw her yards thrown aback, and she came up into the wind, remaining hove-to until a boat was lowered, and then slowly tacking to and fro opposite them. The watchers on the beach saw the boat lowered down the side, and the men scramble into her; then they saw the sunlight glitter on the oar-blades as they dipped into the water and the boat shot away from the parent vessel's side.
"Well, good bye, then; off we go;" and with light hearts the boaters and the pedestrians parted. Eric, Graham, Duncan, and Montagu took the first turn at the oars, while Wildney steered. Graham's "crabs," and Wildney's rather crooked steering, gave plenty of opportunity for chaff, and they were full of fun as the oar-blades splashed and sparkled in the waves.
With one bound I reached the parapet; and, sure enough, at a distance of only three- quarters of a mile away, and just sweeping fairly into view from behind the next island below us, the launch, pinnace, and second cutter of the Daphne appeared, with their ensigns streaming in the breeze and the quick-flashing oar-blades and the bayonets of the "jollies" gleaming brightly in the sun.
"See, sir," said the cockswain, pointing towards the eastern horizon; "it is just rising into the streak of light to seaward of us now it settles in the trough ah! here you have it again!" "By heavens!" cried Barnstable, "'tis a man-of-war's stroke it pulls; I saw the oar-blades as they fell! and, listen to the sound! neither your fisherman nor your smuggler pulls such a regular oar."
Then were observed rapid movements on the decks; and men were seen hastening aloft, and standing out upon the foremast yards. This, however, had offered no interruption to the exertions of the boatmen, who still kept plying with a vigour that set even the sail-less vessel in motion, as the foaming water, thrown from their bending oar-blades, dashed angrily against her prow.
They easied in the middle of a stroke, and raised their oar-blades, glistening and dripping. "And now, Señor Pether, I hold you covered. I am a dead shot, and if you carry the Recipe a yard farther away you bring your fate upon your own head. I, Taltavull, swear it." I saw Mrs. Cromwell lean over and cover the blind man's body with her own.
This story Arthur whispered to Louis, floating between the moonlit shores of Champlain. He lay in the stern watching the rhythmic rise of the oar-blades, and the flashing of the water-drops falling back like diamonds into the wave. Happiness lay beside him steering the boat, a seraph worked the oars, the land ahead must be paradise.
The very instant the sound of the gun reaches his ear, those oar-blades will flash like lightning into the water, and "smite the sounding furrows" with marvellous regularity and speed. He is the favourite, and there are some heavy bets on his success; Bruce and Brogten and Lord Fitzurse will be richer or poorer by some twenty pounds each from the result of this quarter of an hour.
With what inward quakings we noted the clean fine lines of stem and stern! . . . Of the Tuebrook we had no fear. We knew they could never stand the pace the Germans would set. Could we? Old Burke, though in a fever of excitement when we came to the line, had little to say. "Keep the byes in hand, Takia till ye get th' wurrd," was all he muttered. We swung our oar-blades forward. "Ready?"
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