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Updated: May 17, 2025
The end of the hawser-like rope winding through these intricacies, was then conducted to the windlass, and the huge lower block of the tackles was swung over the whale; to this block the great blubber hook, weighing some one hundred pounds, was attached.
The yearnings of untold generations after the precious gold have filtered the love of it into our blood, made the desire for it an instinct. Jim went to bed that night richer by over one hundred pounds than he had been when he rose in the morning. Done and Burton logged up their shaft and rigged the windlass, and set about the methodical working of the claim.
At first, daylight blinded him. He threw the lantern from his hat and blinked the darkness out of his eyes. "It's all right fellows," he roared down the shaft, funnelling his hands. Then he looked. Sheriff Flood was not to be seen. Neither was MacDonald. There seemed to be no one. The day shift were going back in the tunnels below. The windlass handle hung prone as a disused well.
I had three anchors, weighing forty pounds, one hundred pounds, and one hundred and eighty pounds respectively. The windlass and the forty-pound anchor, and the "fiddle-head," or carving, on the end of the cutwater, belonged to the original Spray. The ballast, concrete cement, was stanchioned down securely. There was no iron or lead or other weight on the keel.
No sooner was the boat secured astern, and its freight disposed of, than the mate began to make sail. In order to hoist the mainsail well up, he was obliged to carry the halyards to the windlass. Thus aided, he succeeded without much difficulty. He and Jack Tier and Biddy got the jib hoisted by hand; and as for the fore-sail, that would almost set itself.
If the two vessels approached near enough, I would throw a line to La Fidélité, and Mary Phillips would make it fast, I knew. Then with a windlass I might draw the two vessels together. Then I would spring on board the steamer, and when I had transferred Bertha and Mary to the Sparhawk, would cut loose La Fidélité to drift where she pleased.
Almost before he was aware of it Wilmshurst literally blundered upon an open expanse where the short grass had been burnt off close to the ground. Surrounded by a barrage of bluish vapour that rose from irregular mounds of débris, the subaltern was able to breathe comparatively fresh air. Ahead was the well, its windlass of hard teak charred but otherwise uninjured.
The deck was occupied by some twenty men or so, some of whom were asleep in the lee scuppers, while others, in little groups of two and three, hung over the bulwarks, staring idiotically at the white foam that swept aft from the schooner's keen cut-water; and four, who had probably assumed the duty of looking out, staggered and lurched in pairs, holding each other on their legs, to-and-fro between the windlass and the fore-rigging, occasionally indulging in an ineffectual attempt to exchange remarks.
I don't know whether it was on account of being taken a little notice of that night, but the lad always kind of hung about me afterwards; chased me round with his eyes in a way he had, and did odd jobs for me without the asking. One night before the first week was out, he hauled alongside of me on the windlass.
And here Bildad, who, with Peleg, be it known, in addition to his other offices, was one of the licensed pilots of the port he being suspected to have got himself made a pilot in order to save the Nantucket pilot-fee to all the ships he was concerned in, for he never piloted any other craft Bildad, I say, might now be seen actively engaged in looking over the bows for the approaching anchor, and at intervals singing what seemed a dismal stave of psalmody, to cheer the hands at the windlass, who roared forth some sort of a chorus about the girls in Booble Alley, with hearty good will.
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