A boatswain handily brought within reach the sagging heave line, using a boat hook, and then overhanded while the rowers slashed away toward the schooner.
Captain Bent, training his glass and observing details, found everything running true to form according to his prompt and previous estimate of the situation. The man on the packet dropped from the poop, waddled along the main deck and now actively handled the line which had been dropped across the waist.
But he was not helping to salvage.
He pulled in the weighted end, swung the slug around his head and heaved line and missile in the direction of the advancing boat. Not resting with this hint that he was declining assistance, he climbed into the fore shrouds and bellowed commands to fend off, shaking his fist to point up his orders.
For the cutter’s commander the affair had dropped into its expected and banal rut. Only another decrepit old lugger staggering down the coast with a load of rum! The prime zest of salvage adventure had oozed into the bilge of a hooch capture! Captain Bent was despising this performance, duty though it might be. In the affair his animosity had a keener edge because a disreputable hooker was dishonoring a clipper name after filching it from some hardy veteran’s yarns or memories.
The graduate from the clipper Harvest Home growled anathema when he drove the binoculars back into the case slung across his breast.
Noting that the job was properly in progress, he went below and started a game of solitaire, banging his fist on the cards, scowling through the cigar smoke.
He could afford to take it easy and indulge his disgust, giving no personal attention to what was doing outside. The navigating lieutenant was fully capable of handling the ship; and the job of hauling drum cable to the schooner would be long and tedious.
Eventually the captain, cocking his ear toward the open skylight, heard sounds which revealed that his subalterns had again proved up as his apt pupils. Far away sounded the boatswain’s shrill pipe. The cutter’s whistle gruffly hooted acknowledgment of the signal. At once the deck winches began to rumble, showing that the cable had been run and made fast and was being shortened.
Captain Bent could visualize the scene outside. He heard the bell for half speed ahead; and the compass revealed that they were heading sou’west to get into steadier sea outside the tide rips.