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He pursued the plan which I would recommend to all rats in his position: he joined the mirth which his own appearance raised; and when we made merry at the awkward manner in which he waddled after his more light-footed companions, he never took it amiss, nor retired into a corner of the shed to sulk, amidst rope-ends and bits of rusty iron. I have said that we had merry nights in the warehouse.
Wilbur was drenched to the skin and sore in every joint, from being shunted from rail to mast and from mast to rail again. The cordage sang like harp-strings, the schooner's forefoot crushed down into the heaving water with a hissing like that of steam, blocks rattled, the Captain bellowed his orders, rope-ends flogged the hollow deck till it reverberated like a drum-head.
In an instant I had all four of the buoys ready, and two of them bent on to the longest rope-ends I could lay my hands on, and, in another, that glorious Bob appeared with a coil of ratline on his shoulder and a lighted blue-light in his hand.
First she bade us avoid the sound of the voice of the wondrous Sirens, and their field of flowers, and me only she bade listen to their voices. So bind ye me in a hard bond, that I may abide unmoved in my place, upright in the mast-stead, and from the mast let rope-ends be tied, and if I beseech and bid you to set me free, then do ye straiten me with yet more bonds."
The light of the lantern, striking among all these trunks and forked branches and twisted rope-ends of lianas, made the whole place, or all that you could see of it, a kind of a puzzle of turning shadows. They came to meet you, solid and quick like giants, and then span off and vanished; they hove up over your head like clubs, and flew away into the night like birds.
But do thou drive thy ship past, and knead honey-sweet wax, and anoint therewith the ears of thy company, lest any of the rest hear the song; but if thou myself art minded to hear, let them bind thee in the swift ship hand and foot, upright in the mast-stead, and from the mast let rope-ends be tied, that with delight thou mayest hear the voice of the Sirens.
We used to call his cigars 'Marx's rope-ends, and they were as bad as their name. That the terrible things he had to smoke, because they were cheap, injured his health there can be no doubt at all. I used to say that it was helping the movement to take him a box of decent cigars, for it was surely saving him from smoking old rope-ends. "Poor Jenny!
And I anointed therewith the ears of all my men in their order, and in the ship they bound me hand and foot upright in the mast-stead, and from the mast they fastened rope-ends and themselves sat down, and smote the grey sea water with their oars.
Rope-ends, life-buoys, and other things were flung over the side; oars were plunged; boats darted forward; fifty efforts at rescue were made in as many seconds, for there was wealth of aid at hand, and in a wonderfully brief space of time the brown boy was restored to his grateful friends, while Robin, enveloped in a suit of dry clothes much too large for him, was seated with his friend the engineer down among the great cranks, and wheels, and levers, of the regions below.
But it was a ridiculous nonsense, for having paddled to her, I was thrown into paroxysms of rage by repeated failures to scale her bulwarks, low as they were; my hands, indeed, could reach, but I found no hold upon the slimy mass, and three rope-ends which I caught were also untenably slippery: so that I jerked always back into the boat, my clothes a mass of filth, and the only thought in my blazing brain a twenty-pound charge of guncotton, of which I had plenty, to blow her to uttermost Hell.
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