Ten to one , if I were so foolhardy as to cut the HISPANIOLA from her anchor , I and the coracle would be knocked clean out of the water . This brought me to a full stop , and if fortune had not again particularly favoured me , I should have had to abandon my design . But the light airs which had begun blowing from the south-east and south had hauled round after nightfall into the south-west . Just while I was meditating , a puff came , caught the HISPANIOLA , and forced her up into the current ; and to my great joy , I felt the hawser slacken in my grasp , and the hand by which I held it dip for a second under water . With that I made my mind up , took out my gully , opened it with my teeth , and cut one strand after another , till the vessel swung only by two . Then I lay quiet , waiting to sever these last when the strain should be once more lightened by a breath of wind . All this time I had heard the sound of loud voices from the cabin , but to say truth , my mind had been so entirely taken up with other thoughts that I had scarcely given ear . Now , however , when I had nothing else to do , I began to pay more heed . One I recognized for the coxswain 's , Israel Hands , that had been Flint 's gunner in former days . The other was , of course , my friend of the red night-cap . Both men were plainly the worse of drink , and they were still drinking , for even while I was listening , one of them , with a drunken cry , opened the stern window and threw out something , which I divined to be an empty bottle . But they were not only tipsy ; it was plain that they were furiously angry . Oaths flew like hailstones , and every now and then there came forth such an explosion as I thought was sure to end in blows . But each time the quarrel passed off and the voices grumbled lower for a while , until the next crisis came and in its turn passed away without result . On shore , I could see the glow of the great camp-fire burning warmly through the shore-side trees . Someone was singing , a dull , old , droning sailor 's song , with a droop and a quaver at the end of every verse , and seemingly no end to it at all but the patience of the singer . I had heard it on the voyage more than once and remembered these words : `` But one man of her crew alive , What put to sea with seventy-five . '' And I thought it was a ditty rather too dolefully appropriate for a company that had met such cruel losses in the morning . But , indeed , from what I saw , all these buccaneers were as callous as the sea they sailed on . At last the breeze came ; the schooner sidled and drew nearer in the dark ; I felt the hawser slacken once more , and with a good , tough effort , cut the last fibres through .
The breeze had but little action on the XXXXX , and I was almost instantly swept against the bows of the HISPANIOLA .
Hands coracle days explosion hailstones hawser morning night-cap shore-side slacken