ad to strain until the massive chains
seemed about to give way, and the men stood in peril of having their
heads suddenly cut open.

Not to be too prolix on this subject, it may be said, shortly, that when
the chain and sinker of the next buoy were being hauled in, a three-inch
rope snapped and grazed the finger of a man, fortunately taking no more
than a little of the skin off, though it probably had force enough to
have taken his hand off if it had struck him differently. Again they
tried, but the sinker had got so far down into the mud that it would not
let go. The engine went at last very slowly, for it was applying almost
the greatest strain that the chains could bear, and the bow of the
tender was hauled considerably down into the sea. The men drew back a
little, but, after a few moments of suspense, the motion of the vessel
gradually loosened the sinker and eased the strain.

"There she goes, handsomely," cried the men, as the engine again resumed
work at reasonable speed.

"We sometimes lose chains and sinkers altogether in that way," remarked
Dick Moy to Billy, who stood looking on with heightened colour and
glowing eyes, and wishing with all the fervour of his small heart that
the whole affair would give way, in order that he might enjoy the
_tremendous_ crash which he thought would be sure to follow.

"Would it be a great loss?" he asked.

"It would, a wery great un," said Dick; "that there chain an' sinker is
worth nigh fifty or sixty pound."

While this work was being done, the captain was busy with his telescope,
taking the exact bearings of the buoy, to ascertain whether or not it
had shifted its position during the six months' conflict with tide and
tempest that it had undergone since last being overhauled. Certain
buildings on shore coming into line with other prominent buildings, such
as steeples, chimneys, and windmills, were his infallible guides, and
these declared that the buoy had not shifted more than a few feet. He
therefore gave the order to have the fresh buoy, with its chain and
sinker, ready to let go.

The buoy in question,--a medium one about eight feet high, five feet in
diameter, and conical in shape--stood at the edge of the vessel, like an
extinguisher for the biggest candle that ever was conceived in the
wildest brain at Rome. Its sinker, a square mass of cast-iron nearly a
ton in weight, lay beside it, and its two-inch chain, every link whereof
was eight or ten inches l