. Aye, aye, Admiral! Cuss away, cuss away--proper quarter-deck
you're givin' us! But we're gettin' to you fast as we can. . . .
England can't spare the likes o' you--an' she won't, not if we can
help it!"
The man worked like a demon. What is more, he was making the others
work, flailing them all--peer and baronet and parson--with
slave-driver's oaths, while they tugged to loosen the timbers under
which the magistrates' table lay wedged.
"Lift, I tell ye! Lift! . . . What the--'s wrong with that end o'
the beam? Stuck, is it? Jammed? Jammed your grandmothers!
Nobbut a few pounds o' loose lime an' plaster beddin' it. Get down
on your knees an' clear it. . . . That's better! And now pull!
PULL, I say! Oh, not _that_ way, you rabbits!--here, let me show
you!"
By efforts Herculean, first digging the rubbish clear with clawed
hands, then straining and heaving till their loins had almost
cracked, they levered up the table at length, and released not only
the Admiral, but the two remaining magistrates, whom they found
pinned under its weight, one unharmed, but in a swoon, the other
moaning feebly with the pain of two broken ribs.
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