First she loomed before me like a blot of something yet blacker than
darkness, then her spars and hull began to take shape, and the next
moment, as it seemed (for, the farther I went the brisker grew the
current of the ebb), I was alongside of her hawser, and had laid hold.

The hawser was as taut as a bowstring--so strong she pulled upon her
anchor. All round the hull, in the blackness, the rippling current
bubbled and chattered like a little mountain stream. One cut with my
sea-gully, and the _Hispaniola_ would go humming down the tide.

So far so good; but it next occurred to my recollection that a taut
hawser, suddenly cut, is a thing as dangerous as a kicking horse. Ten to
one, if I were so foolhardy as to cut the _Hispaniola_ from her anchor, I
and the coracle would be knocked clean out of the water.

This brought me to a full stop, and if fortune had not again particularly
favoured me, I should have had to abandon my design. But the light airs
which had begun blowing from the south-east and south had hauled round
after nightfall into the south-west. Just while I was meditating, a puff
came, caught the _Hispaniola_, and forced her up into the current; and to
my great joy, I felt the hawser slacken in my grasp, and the hand by
which I held it dip for a second under water.

With that I made my mind up, took out my gully, opened it with my teeth,
and cut one strand after another, till the vessel only swung by two. Then
I lay quiet, waiting to sever these last when the strain should be once
more lightened by a breath of wind.

All this time I had heard the sound of loud voices from the cabin; but,
to say truth, my mind had been so entirely taken up with other thoughts
that I had scarcely given ear. Now, however, when I had nothing else to
do, I began to pay more heed.

One I recognised for the coxswain's, Israel Hands, that had been Flint's
gunner in former days. The other was, of course, my friend of the red
night-cap. Both men were plainly the worse for drink, and they were still
drinking; for, even while I was listening, one of them, with a drunken
cry, opened the stern window and threw out something, which I divined to
be an empty bottle. But they were not only tipsy; it was plain that they
were furiously angry. Oaths flew like hailstones, and every now and then
there came forth such an explosion as I thought was sure to end in blows.
But each time the quarrel passed off, and the voices grumbled lower for a
w