anchor was clear of the bottom by the way she leaped under me. "Don't
stop to cat-head that anchor," I calls, "but cut her hawser." They cut
her hawser free, and with the big anchor-rope kinking through the
hawse-hole, away went the _Aurora_, picking up, as she went, the
chain-anchor with its eight or ten fathoms of chain still out and
tucking it under her bilge; and there that anchor stayed, jammed hard
against her bottom planking, while she rushed across the harbor.

"Now," I said, "let's see if we c'n work out of this blessed pocket
without somebody having to notify the insurance companies afterward."

All along the water-front the people by now were crowding to look at us.
All they saw was an American fishing schooner with a crazy American crew
trying to pick her way through a crowded harbor with her four lowers set
in a living gale.

We were across the harbor in no time. "Stand by now--stand by sheets," I
sung out. Steady as statues they waited for the word, and when they got
it--"Har-r-d a-lee-e!" Whf-f the steam came out of them, and the busiest
of all was Sam Leary, with the big turkey between his feet.

As she came around I was afraid her anchor would take bottom and her way
be checked. It did touch, but the _Aurora_ spun on her toes so quick
that before that anchor knew it was down she was off and flying free
again.

All this time I was looking around for Miller and at last I saw him in a
little power boat. He had the French gun-boat in mind that was sure, but
his craft was making heavy weather of it, and before he was half-way to
the gun-boat we were under her stern, on our shoot for the harbor