But before the battleship could arrive despite her doing her level best her crew saw the stranded ship screw and twist, writhe and wriggle like a serpent, and, presently, shoot smoothly into the channel again a free boat. This was satisfactory; so they reeled up their hawsers and complied with the next, signal "can you lend us an anchor" with the despatch characteristic of a man-of-war, and the anchor hung over the side ready to be lowered into a lighter as the gunbout's anchor dropped from her bows. Ten minutes more the chief officer arrived with a native boat, the anchor was taken away and: in less than half an hour the big stern wheeler lay at anchor once more, a few hundred yards from the spot where she -had been on shore for five days, and right glad must the officers and crew have been, for they had been making almost superhuman efforts to float their ship, engineers as black as niggers, captain and mates as brown as gypsies. Everything that would apprecia Sly lighten the ship was landed on, the beach, including coal and water, three anchors were lost and worse than all, when at last the ship did slip off on a rising river she did it so unexpectedly that their steamboat, made fast alongside not being noticed by the officers at that anxious moment was somehow. override and sunk. The following day the Esk, finding she could render' no further assistance to
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.