Curiously enough, the anchor happened to
hook, and so discover the cable, which was thereupon grappled, cut, and
the sea end brought on board over the bow sheave. After being passed
six times round the picking-up drum it was led into the hold, and the
Elba slowly forged ahead, hauling in the cable from the bottom as she
proceeded. At half-past nine she anchored for the night some distance
from the shore, and at three next morning resumed her picking up. 'With
a small delay for one or two improvements I had seen to be necessary
last night,' writes Jenkin, 'the engine started, and since that time I
do not think there has been half an hour's stoppage. A rope to splice,
a block to change, a wheel to oil, an old rusted anchor to disengage
from the cable, which brought it up-- these have been our only
obstructions. Sixty, seventy, eighty, a hundred, a hundred and twenty
revolutions at last my little engine tears away. The even black rope
comes straight out of the blue, heaving water, passes slowly round an
open-hearted, good-tempered-looking pulley, five feet in diameter, aft
past a vicious nipper, to bring all up should anything go wrong, through
a gentle guide on to a huge bluff drum, who wraps him round his body,
and says, " Come you must," as plain as drum can speak; the chattering
pauls say, "I've got him, I've got him; he can't come back," whilst
black cable, much slacker and easier in mind and body, is taken by a
slim V-pulley and passed down into the huge hold, where half a dozen men
put him comfortably to bed after his exertion in rising from his long
bath.
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