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Updated: May 13, 2025
At the entrance of Gow's Gulf we downed sail and took to our paddles again. The tide helped us against the breeze and within half an hour we came in sight of the schooner lying peacefully at anchor as we had left her. So, at least, and at first glance, it seemed; but as we drew near, Captain Branscome stood up suddenly, the tiller-lines in his hands. "Hallo! Where's the dinghy?"
I went out after breakfast, and I gave him a leg up on to his very sorry horse, which he sat like a tailor or a sailor. He held the reins like tiller-lines, and indulged in a pleased smile at the effect of the yellow boots. "No great hand at this sort of thing," he said, with a nod of farewell. "When the beast does anything out of the common, or begins to make heavy weather of it, I AM NOT."
The captain himself is in the stern-sheets, tiller-lines in hand. Mrs Gancy and her daughter crouch beside him, while the others are at the oars, in which occupation Ned and Chester occasionally pause to bale out, as showers of spray keep breaking over the boat, threatening to swamp it. What point shall they steer for? This is a question that no one asks, nor thinks of asking as yet.
Paul's heart beat hard, and as he managed the tiller-lines, he strained his eyes uselessly in order to penetrate the massive-looking darkness. "Surely," he said to Mr. Sharp, who stood constantly at his elbow, "these cries are directly ahead of us! We are steering for the Arabs!" "We have got wrong in the dark then. Lose not a moment to keep the boat away, for here to leeward there are noises."
Ben shoved her well off into the stream, and I took the tiller-lines, seated between my two passengers. "Up oars! Let fall! Give way!" I continued, giving the usual orders. Ben and Hop bent to their oars, while all of us took a parting view of the scene of the fire. The house was burned to the ground; and it seemed to me that nearly the whole population of the city was gathered in the vicinity.
Going off late one night from Hong Kong to the ship, and having to lean over in the stern to get hold of the tiller-lines, I came near putting my whole weight on the baby, lying unperceived in the bottom.
"Veer out the tiller-lines," cried Harvey, "and nail 'em to the bottom!" That was a salt-flavoured jest he had been put up to by Tom Platt. Manuel leaned over the stern and yelled: "Johanna Morgan play the organ! Ahaaaa!" He flourished his broad thumb with a gesture of unspeakable contempt and derision, while little Penn covered himself with glory by piping up: "Gee a little! Hssh! Come here.
The Imp was in a perfect ecstasy of delight; even Dorothy forgot her beloved Louise for the time, while Lisbeth leaner toward me, the tiller-lines over her shoulders, her lips parted and a light in her eyes I had never seen there before. And yet Selwyn hung fast in our rear. If he was deficient in a sense of humour, he could certainly row.
"Right it is," we answered; and with Harris at the sculls and I at the tiller-lines, and Montmorency, unhappy and deeply suspicious, in the prow, out we shot on to the waters which, for a fortnight, were to be our home.
I went to the side and saw a tall lank-haired man, in a suit of white duck, standing in the stern-sheets with the tiller-lines in his hands. "No pigtail on me, Cap!" he bawled. "I'm Oliphant Q. Wills, of the American barque Independence: and I want to come aboard." He pointed to his vessel, which had entered the river soon after us, and now lay, ready for sea, two cables distant from us.
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