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Updated: May 15, 2025
The captain of the steamer had evidently waited for a favorable moment to start on his perilous voyage, and the engineer noticed when he went forward after he had secured Captain Sullendine, that the fog was again settling down on the bay. "On board the steamer!" shouted French, as directed. "Anchor aweigh, sir!" Then a minute later, "All clear, and the towline slack!"
"This launch will be ablaze too in five minutes." Gordon left their task of pouring water over the straining towline they had fastened around the red-hot brass bits and tore down the scraps of fiery canvas from overhead. From the brigantine men leaped into the smaller craft, kept in order and saved from panic by sturdy old Blunt's cool advice, backed up by his never-failing good humor.
Oftentimes, as I have lain swinging on the water, in the swell of the Chelsea ferry-boats, in that long, sharp-pointed, black cradle in which I love to let the great mother rock me, I have seen a tall ship glide by against the tide, as if drawn by some invisible towline, with a hundred strong arms pulling it.
Shielding himself as best he could, Jack returned the fire, making a special effort to keep the Germans away from the towline ashore. As he fired again at a skulking figure, Jack felt a sting in his right arm and at the same moment his revolver fell from his fingers and splashed into the canal.
We rested in some smooth water under shelter and put out our towline; three of my boys jumped ashore and laid hold of it; another with his bamboo boat-hook stood on the bow; the laoban was at the tiller; and I was cooped up useless in the well under the awning. The men started hauling as we pushed out into the sea of waters.
Before making fast the towline from the lifeboat to the stern of the Dewey for the journey toward the coast McClure had Jean Cartier and his commissary assistant bring up pots of steaming hot coffee and dole it out to the forlorn Teutons. Jack went below with Ted and Bill Witt to hear the story of their escape.
For a full hour the ship remained hove-to with her head to seaward, during which an early breakfast was served to the occupants of the cuddy; then, upon the appearance of the tug coming out over the bar, the Concordia wore round and headed inshore, the light sails were rapidly clewed up or hauled down, the towline was got ready for passing, and in a moment everything was bustle and apparent confusion upon the ship's decks, barefooted seamen rushing hither and thither, flinging down coils of rope on deck, casting off halyards and sheets, and dragging vociferously upon clew-garnets, clewlines, downhauls, and the other complicated paraphernalia of a ship's furniture, with the captain shouting orders from the poop, and the mate in charge of a gang of men on the forecastle getting the anchor a-cockbill ready for letting go, and preparing for the arrival of the tug alongside.
The whale, meanwhile, had been running in such a direction as to cross the barque's bows about a quarter of a mile distant, and he actually ran far enough to enable the crew of the boat which had fastened to him to cut themselves adrift when fairly in their ship's course; so that, in a very few minutes after the stroke of the keen tomahawk had severed their towline, they were alongside, and the boat was run up to the davits.
A group of sailors was making ready to heave a line to the Winslow, and Ensign Bagley and his four men stood on the port side of the latter vessel, waiting to receive it. A vicious fire was singing about them. The Spaniards seemed to have found the exact range. There was a momentary delay in heaving the towline, and Ensign Bagley suggested that the Hudson's men hurry. "Heave her," he called.
His up-river journey occupied thirty-eight days, and was attended with one moving incident. In the Hsintan rapid the towline parted, and his junk was smashed to pieces by the rocks, and all that he possessed destroyed.
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