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I knew her crew by sight, but she'd come switching and teturing out of the dust of my shells like like a hen from under a buggy and she'd dip into a gully, and next thing I'd know 'ud be her old nose peeking over the ridge sniffin' for us. Her runnin' mate had two grey mules in the lead, and a natural wood wheel repainted, and a whole raft of rope-ends trailin' around.
Instead of the clouds of canvas swelling proudly to the breeze with which they had entered into action, rope-ends and riddled sails hung drooping down from every mast and yard. The fight was not over; the crew of the Phoenix busily employed themselves in repairing damages, and, having knotted and spliced the rigging, and trimmed sails, she stood towards the Didon.
One went floating calmly off on the life buoy and was picked up by the gig, and the rest caught rope-ends and were safely hauled aboard, none the worse for their involuntary bath.
Both frigates, which had gone into action with nearly all their sails set, now exhibited a melancholy appearance, their canvas riddled or in tatters, and rope-ends drooping from their masts and yards.
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.
A simple batterie de cuisine, and sundry skins full of potable water , dangle from chance rope-ends; and last, but not the least important, is a heavy box of ammunition sufficient for a three months' sporting tour. In the rear of the caravan trudges a Bedouin woman driving a donkey, the proper "tail" in these regions, where camels start if followed by a horse or mule.
The things he sells are all mixed up with parts of his own boats and pieces of canvas and rope-ends, and curly shavings that skitter across the floor when the wind blows in from the harbor. There is a window at one end of his shop-place that goes all the way to the floor, like a doorway, and it is always open.
"Anyhow, now the job is done I may as well make use of it." Recoiling the rope-ends, he cast them across to the reef. In such small ways do men throw invisible dice with death. With those two lines he would, within a few fleeting seconds, drag himself back from eternity.
The sea-fire, which played on the dark billows near Elias's own boat, shone with an odd vividness in the foam round the other boat, just as if a fire-shovel was ploughing up and turning over the water. In the bright phosphorescence he could plainly make out the rope-ends on board her.
"After they found the captain's body. I went to the forward companion and looked down." "Is a helmsman permitted to leave his post?" "With the captain lying dead down in a pool of blood, I should think-" "Never mind thinking. Is he?" "No." "What did you do with the wheel when you left it?" "Lashed it. There are two rope-ends, with loops, to lash it with. When I was on the Sarah Winters "
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