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With the snapping of her tail-shaft her life seemed suddenly to depart from her big body, and from a stubborn, arrogant existence she passed all at once into the passive state of a drifting log. A ship sick with her own weakness has not the pathos of a ship vanquished in a battle with the elements, wherein consists the inner drama of her life.
She'd a great clumsy iron twelve-foot Thresher propeller Aitcheson designed the Kites' and just on the tail o' the shaft, behind the boss, was a red weepin' crack ye could ha' put a penknife to. Man, it was an awful crack! "'When d' ye ship a new tail-shaft? I said to Bannister. "He knew what I meant. 'Oh, yon's a superfeecial flaw, says he, not lookin' at me. "'Superfeecial Gehenna! I said.
"The gale blew out by night, but we lay in smotherin' cross-seas that made the auld Kite chatter from stem to stern. I slowed to thirty-four, I mind no, thirty-seven. There was a long swell the morn, an' the Grotkau was headin' into it west awa'. "'She'll win to Rio yet, tail-shaft or no tail-shaft, says Bell. "'Last night shook her, I said. 'She'll jar it off yet, mark my word.
They'd bore up against it so far, but the minute she was clear o' the Skelligs she fair tucked up her skirts an' ran for it by Dunmore Head. Wow, she rolled! "'She'll be makin' Smerwick, says Bell. "She'd ha' tried for Ventry by noo if she meant that, I said. "'They'll roll the funnel oot o' her, this gait, says Bell. 'Why canna Bannister keep her head to sea? "It's the tail-shaft.
The result was everything that could have been desired, for as soon as the Spaniard realised that he was running ahead of the yacht in the most unaccountable way, he stopped his engines and waited patiently for the other vessel to overtake him, his propeller doubtless slipping off the tail-shaft and going to the bottom at the instant of the stopping of the engines.
To be sure, young Bannister laid his head on the table an' greeted like a bairn, an' Calder was all for callin' on Steiner at two in the morn an' painting him galley-green; but they'd been drinkin' the afternoon. Lord, how they twa cursed the Board, an' the Grotkau, an' the tail-shaft, an' the engines, an' a'! They didna talk o' superfeecial flaws that night.
Ye see, there's vast deeference between towin' a ship wi' men on her an' pickin' up a derelict a vast deeference in pounds sterlin'. Moreover, twa three o' the Grotkau's crew were burnin' to testify about food, an' there was a note o' Calder to the Board, in regard to the tail-shaft, that would ha' been vara damagin' if it had come into court. They knew better than to fight.
"'McPhee, said he, 'ye're no paid to fight Holdock, Steiner, Chase & Company, Limited, when ye meet. What's wrong between you? "'No more than a tail-shaft rotten as a kail-stump. For ony sakes go an' look, McRimmon. It's a comedietta. "'I'm feared o' yon conversational Hebrew, said he. 'Whaur's the flaw, an' what like? "'A seven-inch crack just behind the boss.
Ony rollin''s better than pitchin' wi' superfeecial cracks in the tail-shaft. Calder knows that much, I said. "'It's ill wark retreevin' steamers this weather, said Bell. His beard and whiskers were frozen to his oilskin, an' the spray was white on the weather side of him. Pairfect North Atlantic winter weather!
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