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The oars were got out, and the boat pulled along till the spot Snatchblock observed was reached. Her head was then put to the sea. "Give way, my lads," cried Adair, he and Desmond holding on to one yoke-line, while the boatswain held the other, their eyes eagerly cast towards the foaming breakers, amid which they were about to force their way. The crew put forth all their strength.
Before you could say "Jack Robinson," the whip was down and the purchase in the top; then, the standing part of the tackle was made fast to the yard pendant and the spar swayed up, as the men walked away with the fall, which was rove through a snatchblock hooked on to a ringbolt fixed in the deck and led to the capstan.
Jack and Terence accompanied Murray and Stella down to the pier, where their boat was waiting to take them off to the yacht, which lay among several other fine craft a short distance from it. Both promised to go on board with their wives and children the next morning. "Have you got Ben Snatchblock as master?" asked Jack. "No, no," said Murray, laughing.
The commander, who was on deck, in a moment gave the order to lower the lifeboat; and Adair, with Ben Snatchblock and Desmond, leaped into her and pulled away for the coast, so as to intercept the dhow should she attempt to pass ahead of the corvette. "We've caught the dhow in a trap, at all events," observed Adair, "for she's no chance with the ship on a wind.
Murray, having placed the remainder of the stores, with all unnecessary weight, on board the larger boats, prepared to make the bold attempt; Adair and Snatchblock following him, as close as they could venture, to the inner line of breakers.
Dick Needham got charge of a ship in ordinary, and nothing gave him so much delight as to receive a visit from his old shipmates, who never failed to go and see him when they went to Portsmouth. Ben Snatchblock remained in charge of the Stella, and every summer when Murray was at home she was to be seen trim and taut at her old moorings off Bercaldine.
I wonder whether they think we're going back frightened by all their tom-tomming. We'll show them presently that we've got some chaps aboard which will bark not a little louder and do a precious deal more harm," exclaimed Ben Snatchblock, who accompanied Mr Mildmay in one of the Opal's boats. That young officer took things very coolly.
It was dangerous to separate, though, in search of provisions, as it was more than possible that the Arabs might instigate the natives to attack them. Snatchblock and Desmond, however, volunteered to go, taking different directions, each accompanied by one man.
If Jack and Alick would have allowed it, the seamen, on observing this, would have thrown the rest of the prisoners after them. "What's the use of coopering up these chaps, if that's the way they goes for to behave to themselves?" exclaimed Dick Snatchblock, the boatswain's mate, as he caught another fellow by the leg who was attempting to do the same.
All this time Adair was pulling in towards the breakers. He saw that the Arab crew, who had been the first to reach the shore, were urging on the blacks to run towards a thick wood, the outer edge of which was a few hundred yards only from the beach. "I think we can do it," he said to Snatchblock; "I have been through worse breakers than those in a less buoyant boat than ours.
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