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Updated: June 7, 2025
Once more the Lily fired, but what was the astonishment of the British seamen to see her haul her main-tack aboard and begin to make all sail, putting her head to the northward. To follow was impossible, as the Lily had every brace and bowline, all her after backstays, several of her lower shrouds, and other parts of her rigging, shot away.
A heavy ball crashed into the after bulwarks, tearing them away and slamming over gun and carriage, that slid a space, grinding the gunners under it. One end of a bowline whipped over us; a jib dropped; a brace fell crawling over my shoulders like a big snake; the foremast went into splinters a few feet above the deck, its top falling over, its canvas sagging in great folds.
"Ah, sorr!" replied Mr McCarthy with a heavy sigh and a troubled look in his usually merry twinkling grey eyes, "you'll never say another ship the likes of her again! If you'll belave me, Mister Lathrope, sorr, she'd sail ten knots on a bowline; and I'd like to know where you'd bate that now?"
At last, however, success rewarded his efforts, and a strong pull, with the united weight of all three, failed to start the closely-drawn bowline.
Spurred on by this motive, I quickly learnt all the names of the ropes and their various uses from Mr Mackay; while Tim Rooney showed me how to make a "reef knot," a "clove hitch," a "running bowline," and a "sheep-shank," explaining the difference between these and their respective advantages over the common "granny's knot" of landsmen my friend the boatswain judiciously discriminating between the typical peculiarities of the "cat's-paw" and the "sheet bend," albeit the one has nothing in connection with the feline tribe and the other no reference to one's bed-covering!
But, it was impossible to penetrate further into this singular mystery, so long as the strangers kept off the land. This they did of course, the three vessels passing to windward of the Peak, in a line ahead, going to the southward, and standing along the cliffs, on an easy bowline.
Amid renewed growling and another futile attempt to free himself, Numa was finally forced to submit to the further indignity of having a rope secured about his neck; but this time it was no noose that might tighten and strangle him; but a bowline knot, which does not tighten or slip under strain.
The two knights had come aboard the cog, and the grapplings having been thrown off, the three vessels now moved abreast through all the storm and rush of the fight Alleyne had been aware of the voice of Goodwin Hawtayne, the master-shipman, with his constant "Hale the bowline!
However, this is the last we'll ever see of the old Esmeralda, so far as standing on her deck goes; still, I tell you what, Leigh, you may possibly live to be a much older man than I am, but you'll never come across a ship easier to handle in a gale, or one that would go better on a bowline!"
Next morning we were up abreast of the Isle of Wight; but the wind had got round to the southward and eastward, becoming much lighter, and so scant as to bring us on a taut bowline. This made England a lee-shore, and I began to be as glad to get off it, as I had lately been to hug it. All this time, it will easily be understood that we kept a sharp look-out, on board the brig, for enemies.
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