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At nightfall the boat would be manned, dropped down to its place, made fast to the hawser by a snatch-block, and commence its regular trips, passing over the wagons. These gunwales were single sticks of timber, sixty or eighty feet long, two or three feet wide, and say six inches thick.
Then, going forward, I brought aft a snatch-block that I had previously been using, led the falls, one after the other, through this to the winch, and, with Miss Onslow hanging on to the rope to prevent it slipping on the barrel of the winch, managed to hoist the boat and secure her.
Jumping up, I faced him again, only to undergo a repetition of the flooring process; when, seeing that I with my boy's strength was no match for him as yet, and losing my temper quite as much as he had done, I seized a large snatch-block which was lying by on the deck close to my hand, hurling it at his head with all my force.
Before this another gang had been able to slip the other chain to position abaft the mizzenmast, hook on the tackle, and lead the fall through a snatch-block at the quarter-bitts forward to the midship capstan.
"Well, as to that," interrupts the old sailor, his face resuming its wonted calm, "I can't you know I can't, Tom, sail without a clearance. I sometimes think I'm never going to get one. Two years, as you know, I've been here, now backing and then filling, in and out, just as it suits that chap with the face like a snatch-block. They call him a justice.
I had quickly picked up a handspike when I saw that I had missed my aim with the snatch-block, while my antagonist who, to do him justice, had plenty of pluck, and had only been startled for the moment by the heavy missile hurtling through the air close to his projecting nose was advancing to attack me again with his fists clenched, a savage look the while on his face, as if he meant to settle me this time; but, on this interruption from the skipper, we both relinquished our hostile attitudes, Mr Macdougall slinking towards the binnacle, as if innocently engaged in studying the bearings of the compass there, and I dropping the handspike incontinently.
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