Читать книгу The Captain from Connecticut онлайн

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Rodgers looked warily to windward, and studied the send of the sea, watching for his moment.

"Heave!" he shouted to the leeside men.

The longboat went out with a run, hanging from the lee yardarms exclusively while the Delaware listed more sharply still.

"Let go," shouted Rodgers to the men at the lee main yardarm tackles. When they were let go the boat would hang vertically down in the slings until she slid down out of them, and the men obeyed promptly enough. But the line ran only for a second in the sheaves and then jammed. The longboat hung at too small an angle to slide out of the slings, and remained dangling from the yardarms, imperilling the very life of the ship.

"God damn the thing to hell," said Rodgers.

A couple of hands sprang into the rigging with the idea of getting out to the block and clearing it.

"Let go, there, you men!" roared Peabody suddenly at the men holding the lee fore yardarm line. With a start of surprise they did so. The other end of the boat fell; she tipped up more and more, and then fell from the slings into the sea while the Delaware righted herself. Rodgers had been caught off his guard by the jammed line. He had been intending all along to drop the longboat stern first, and did not possess the flexibility of mind to reverse his plans instantly when the hitch came.