Once more he waved his right hand imperiously. Even the fingers began to feel wooden and look yellow in the sunlight, like the great branching timber, measuring thirty feet in its curve, weighing half a ton, which to an onlooker he seemed to be supporting upon his back and shoulders, although the ponderous weight was still really suspended in the hempen falls of the derrick.
Relying upon these straining ropes, one of the two ship-carpenters who had been steadying the ponderous rib with their hands, leaped down to lend some aid in “shoring it,” propping it in place upon the skeleton vessel’s narrow keel-timbers.
It might have been ten seconds later that Atlas felt the peculiar thrill and quiver all through his bent back, his numbing legs--with their feet braced upon the stocks, or building-blocks--that he felt when trout-fishing or “drailing” in the ocean, if a big fish nibbled at his line.
He had got a nibble now! A danger nibble! There was a tremble, a shudder, in the great rib pressing upon him.
Er-er-err-r! It was the gurgle of an aged rope, a worn-out rope, parting, strand by strand, in mid-air.
“My s-soul! The--the falls--derrick’s falls--are--giving--way!”
The nibble had become a bite now, with the hook in his brain.
And he came of a race--a ready-witted race--which was accustomed to act upon any strong nibble of conviction--to take lightning-hold upon a situation.
It was a lightning vision which swam before Atlas now, against a black background of shipyard. He saw the great rib, the ponderous timber, released by the derrick’s failing ropes, unable to maintain, even with his aid, its balance, tottering--tumbling--sidewise, off from him--crashing down into the yard.
He saw, too, that the near-by girl defying him with that merry, wilful glance pointed to mockery on the golden tips of her eyelashes, was within reach of being struck by it--by the wide curve it would describe in falling.