She went chuckety-chuck, chuckety-chuck for half a dozen turns;
then she slowed down soon as she struck the full weight, and began to
pant like an old horse climbin' a hill. All this time the Colonel was
callin' out from where he stood near the tiller: 'She'll never lift it,
Captain--she'll never lift it.'
"Next come a scrapin' 'long the deck, and the big stone swung clear with
a foot o' daylight 'tween it and the deck. Then up she went, crawlin'
slowly inch by inch, till she reached the height of the brig's rail.
"Now come the wust part. I knew that when I gave orders to slack away
the guy-rope so as to swing the stone aboard the brig, the Screamer
would list over and dip her rail in the water. So I made a jump for the
rope ladder and shinned up the brig's side so as to take a hand in
landin' the stone properly on the brig's deck so as to save her beams
and break the jar when I lowered the stone down. I had one eye now on
the stone and the other on the water, which was curling over the
Screamer's rail and makin' for the fo'c's'le hatch.
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