- But now we are
startled by a most unpleasant, grinding noise; which appeared at
first to come from the large low pulley, but when the engines
stopped, the noise continued; and we now imagine it is something
slipping down the cable, and the pulley but acts as sounding-board
to the big fiddle. Whether it is only an anchor or one of the two
other cables, we know not. We hope it is not the cable just laid
down.
'June 19.
'10 A.M. - All our alarm groundless, it would appear: the odd
noise ceased after a time, and there was no mark sufficiently
strong on the large cable to warrant the suspicion that we had cut
another line through. I stopped up on the look-out till three in
the morning, which made 23 hours between sleep and sleep. One goes
dozing about, though, most of the day, for it is only when
something goes wrong that one has to look alive. Hour after hour,
I stand on the forecastle-head, picking off little specimens of
polypi and coral, or lie on the saloon deck reading back numbers of
the TIMES - till something hitches, and then all is hurly-burly
once more.
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