A little later, off
Torpoint, they fell in with the water-police, who took them for a
party rowing home to Plymouth from the Regatta, and threatened 'em
with the lock-up if they didn't proceed quiet. Next they fell foul
of the guard-ship, and their palaver fetched the Admiral himself out
upon the little balcony in his nightshirt. When he'd done talking
they were a hundred yards off, and glad of it.
Well, Sir, they tried ship after ship, the blessed night through,
till hope was nigh dead in them, and their bodies ached with
weariness and hunger. Long before they reached Devil's Point the
tumble had upset Hancock's stomach completely. He had lost his oar;
somehow it slipped off between the thole-pins, and in his weakness he
forgot to cry out that 'twas gone. It drifted away in the dark--the
night all round was black as your hat, the squalls hiding the stars--
and he dropped off his thwart upon the bottom-boards. "I'm a dying
man," he groaned, "and I don't care. I don't care how soon it comes!
'Tis all over with me, and I shall never see my dear Sally no more!"
So they tossed till day broke and showed Drake's Island ahead of
them, and the whole Sound running with a tidy send of sea from the
south'ard, grey and forlorn.
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