He tried to make up his mind for the bold plunge, but still he could not. The perspiration stood out on his forehead, his hands grew wet, and his breath came short; but at last, when feeling that his task must be done, for if he did not drop, Tom Fillot would begin to climb up, only to be struck back, he drew a long breath, and pressing his feet hard against the stern, instead of descending he began to draw himself up. Striving gently he glided on to the rail, and from there, as softly as a serpent, lowered himself to the deck, crept along for a few feet and then began to unfasten the line about his chest, and secured it to the stout iron upon which the block ran from side to side, and held down the heavy boom of the fore and aft mainsail.
For all at once, when he was at his worst pitch of agony and despair at his failure, a familiar voice from somewhere forward cried sharply:
“Jeffs.”
“Hello,” said the man close by him, softly.
“Forward!”
The man went away, and Mark felt that his time had come. He might be able to make the rope fast after all, without being heard by the man at the wheel.
He could hardly believe in his good fortune, for just as the fellow Jeffs went forward, the helmsman began to hum over some sea-song, pretty loudly, to amuse himself; while he held his hand below his eyes and gazed over it forward, to see what was going on, and why his companion had been summoned.
He was still occupied in this way when Mark gave the line the signal tugs, and crept sidewise into the shelter of the bulwark, where all was perfectly black.
There he crouched dirk in hand, listening to the beating of his heart, and the peculiar dull sound made by the line as it tightened, and this was supplemented by a crack or two as it gave over the wood across which it was strained.
The man at the wheel was so intent upon his song, and that which was going on forward, that he did not notice the sounds which were terribly loud to the midshipman’s ear, till Tom Fillot had climbed up, was about to throw his legs over, but slipped.