Nevertheless, I managed with my rifle to bother the exposed men on
the rail to the extent that they lost one hooked bird out of two.
And twenty-six men require a quantity of albatrosses and mollyhawks
every twenty-four hours, while they can fish only in the daylight.
As the day wore along I improved on my obstructive tactics. When the
Elsinore was up in the eye of the wind, and making sternway, I found
that by putting the wheel sharply over, one way or the other, I could
swing her bow off. Then, when she had paid off till the wind was
abeam, by reversing the wheel hard across to the opposite hard-over I
could take advantage of her momentum away from the wind and work her
off squarely before it. This made all the wood-floated triangles of
bird-snares tow aft along her sides.
The first time I was ready for them. With hooks and sinkers on our
own lines aft, we tossed out, grappled, captured, and broke off nine
of their lines. But the next time, so slow is the movement of so
large a ship, the mutineers hauled all their lines safely inboard ere
they towed aft within striking distance of my grapnels.
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