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Updated: April 30, 2025
Sick with the sudden thought of the possibilities suggested by the presence of such an object just where he saw it, Dick took a hasty turn of a rope's-end round the tiller-head and with one bound reached the weather-shrouds, up which he shinned with an agility equalled only by the dread that struck like a knife at his heart.
The corporal, as we said before, turned round and round the compass to ascertain if he could compass his wishes; at last, he commenced by dragging one rope's-end from one side and another from the other; those would do for the side ropes, but he wanted a long one from forward and another from aft, and how to get the one from aft under the cutter's bottom was a puzzle; and then there was the mast and the rigging in his way; the corporal reflected the more he considered the matter, the more his brain became confused; he was at a nonplus, and he gave it up in despair: he stood still, took out a blue cotton handkerchief from the breast of his jacket and wiped his forehead, for the intensity of thought had made him perspire anything like reflection was very hard work for Corporal Van Spitter.
"Right, Watty, right," said Jack, with a sigh; "we have both been fools, so must grin and bear it." Watty greeted this remark, to Jack's surprise, with a sudden and unexpected yell, as he received a cut from a rope's-end over the back. "What, idling, eh?" cried the steward, flourishing the rope's-end again.
I tried to persuade them to come a little nearer, if not actually on board, but Matadi resolutely refused; and as he seemed half inclined to go back again without even waiting to see what I had to show him, I ordered the steward to open the boxes at once, and forthwith proceeded to exhibit my coils of wire, strings of beads, bandana handkerchiefs, rolls of gaudily-coloured prints, old military uniforms, and muskets, and other odds and ends, the exhibition proving so attractive that before its conclusion the canoe had been gradually sheered nearer and nearer to the schooner until she was brought fairly alongside, and they had even consented to accept a rope's-end to hang on by.
Didn't he lamp two on 'em with a rope's-end once till they wos fit to bust, and all for nothin' but skylarkin'? They'll all go in the same boat with me, 'cept perhaps the cook, who is named Baldwin. He's a cross-grained critter, an'll stan' by the cap'en through thick an thin, an' so will the carpenter Box they call him he's dead agin us; but that's all."
It came in with a swishing roar, a rush and rise of furious water that swept us like corks up the beach, till we were within touch of the rope's-end, and the men shouted again to hearten us as they flung it out. Elzevir seized it with his left hand and reached out his right to me.
There was not so very much damage done, after all, so far as the brig was concerned. Her peak- halliards were cut and she temporarily lost the use of her main trysail, and we could see a rope's-end or two streaming out here and there in the wind; but that was all, excepting that her canvas showed a few extra eyelet-holes.
If Barto shall be found to have acted without just grounds, I am certain that Count Medole' he turned suavely to the nobleman 'will withdraw confidence from him; and that will be equivalent to a rope's-end for Barto. We shall see him to-night at your house? 'He will be there, Medole said. 'But the harm's done; the mischief's done!
"Stand still and see!" says I. But hereupon he retreated to the ladder and I, feeling my sickness upon me again, contented me by throwing the rope's-end at the fellow and stepping out backward, clapped to the door. So with what speed I might I got me down into the hold and to my dog-hole. And here I saw I had left my lanthorn burning, and found in this light strange comfort.
"Oh!" I exclaimed, making him laugh again at my expression of horror. "Aye, it is so; I'm telling the truth, as you'll find if you ask the boatswain, whom I see you've got chummy with already. But, by Jove, they're just going to set the tops'les; and we'll have the skipper or old Sandy Saunders after us with a rope's-end if we stop jawing here any longer."
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