“No, no; he’ll break away if you do that,” cried the mate. “I want to get him aboard if I can manage it. I say: the tackle isn’t too big and coarse, is it, Mr Brace?”
“I didn’t expect you were going to hook a thing like this at the first attempt. Give him some more line.”
“There’s on’y ’bout a fathom more of it left, sir,” cried the man who was casting the line off from the winder.
“Let out half and then get a hold too, my lad,” said Lynton.
“Ay, ay, sir,” answered the man.
“This is rather too much of a good thing,” said the mate. “Here, let the boat go with him; it’ll ease the strain.”
“Why, he has been towing us for the last five minutes,” said Briscoe.
“Hi! hullo!” cried Brace. “Oh, what luck! Gone!”
The men groaned, for the line, which had up till then been quite tense and kept on cutting through the water as the prisoner darted here and there in its wild efforts to escape, suddenly became slack, and, with an angry ejaculation, Lynton began to haul slowly in.
“I knew it; I knew it,” he said: “that tackle wasn’t half strong enough.”