As they descended and walked through the buildings, Rose also took good
heed of the supplies the place afforded. There were flour, and beef, and
pork, and many other of the common articles of food, as well as water
in a cistern, that caught it as it flowed from the roof of the dwelling.
Water was also to be found in casks--nothing like a spring or a well
existing among those islets. All these things Rose noted, putting them
aside in her memory for ready reference hereafter.
In the mean time the mariners were not idle. Spike moved his brig, and
moored her, head and stern, alongside of the wreck, before the people
got their breakfasts. As soon as that meal was ended, both captain and
mate set about their duty in earnest. Mulford carried out an anchor on
the off-side of the Swash, and dropped it at a distance of about
eighty fathoms from the vessel's beam. Purchases were brought from both
mast-heads of the brig to the chain of this anchor, and were hove upon
until the vessel was given a heel of more than a streak, and the cable
was tolerably taut. Other purchases were got up opposite, and overhauled
down, in readiness to take hold of the schooner's masts. The anchor of
the schooner was weighed by its buoy-rope, and the chain, after being
rove through the upper or opposite hawse-hole, brought in on board the
Swash. Another chain was dropped astern, in such a way, that when the
schooner came upright, it would be sure to pass beneath her keel,
some six or eight feet from the rudder. Slings were then sunk over the
mast-heads, and the purchases were hooked on. Hours were consumed in
these preliminary labours, and the people went to dinner as soon as they
were completed.
When the men had dined, Spike brought one of his purchases to the
windlass, and the other to the capstan, though not until each was
bowsed taut by hand; a few minutes having brought the strain so far on
everything, as to enable a seaman, like Spike, to form some judgment
of the likelihood that his preventers and purchases would stand. Some
changes were found necessary to equalize the strain, but, on the whole,
the captain was satisfied with his work, and the crew were soon ordered
to “heave-away; the windlass best.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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