"
Bastianello went ashore on the pier and his brother pulled the skiff out
till he was alongside of the sailboat, to which he made her fast. He
busied himself with trifles until it grew dark and there was no one on
the pier. Then he got into the boat again, taking a bit of strong line
with him, a couple of fathoms long, or a little less. Stooping down he
slipped the line under the bags of ballast and made a timber-hitch with
the end, hauling it well taut. With the other end he made a bowline
round the thwart on which he was sitting, and on which he must sit to
pull the bow oar in the evening. He tied the knot wide enough to admit
of its running freely from side to side of the boat, and he stowed the
bight between the ballast and the thwart, so that it lay out of sight in
the bottom. The two sacks of pebbles together weighed, perhaps, from a
half to three-quarters of a hundredweight.
When all was ready he went ashore and shouted for the Cripple and the
Son of the Fool, who at once appeared out of the dusk, and were put on
board the sailboat by him. Then he pulled himself ashore and moored the
tub to a ring in the pier.
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