I had quite made up my mind that the mutineers , after their repulse of the morning , had nothing nearer their hearts than to up anchor and away to sea ; this , I thought , it would be a fine thing to prevent , and now that I had seen how they left their watchmen unprovided with a boat , I thought it might be done with little risk . Down I sat to wait for darkness , and made a hearty meal of biscuit . It was a night out of ten thousand for my purpose . The fog had now buried all heaven . As the last rays of daylight dwindled and disappeared , absolute blackness settled down on Treasure Island . And when , at last , I shouldered the coracle and groped my way stumblingly out of the hollow where I had supped , there were but two points visible on the whole anchorage . One was the great fire on shore , by which the defeated pirates lay carousing in the swamp . The other , a mere blur of light upon the darkness , indicated the position of the anchored ship . She had swung round to the ebb -- her bow was now towards me -- the only lights on board were in the cabin , and what I saw was merely a reflection on the fog of the strong rays that flowed from the stern window . The ebb had already run some time , and I had to wade through a long belt of swampy sand , where I sank several times above the ankle , before I came to the edge of the retreating water , and wading a little way in , with some strength and dexterity , set my coracle , keel downwards , on the surface . 23 The Ebb-tide Runs THE coracle -- as I had ample reason to know before I was done with her -- was a very safe boat for a person of my height and weight , both buoyant and clever in a seaway ; but she was the most cross-grained , lop-sided craft to manage . Do as you pleased , she always made more leeway than anything else , and turning round and round was the manoeuvre she was best at . Even Ben Gunn himself has admitted that she was `` queer to handle till you knew her way . '' Certainly I did not know her way . She turned in every direction but the one I was bound to go ; the most part of the time we were broadside on , and I am very sure I never should have made the ship at all but for the tide . By good fortune , paddle as I pleased , the tide was still sweeping me down ; and there lay the HISPANIOLA right in the fairway , hardly to be missed . First she loomed before me like a blot of something yet blacker than darkness , then her spars and hull began to take shape , and the next moment , as it seemed -LRB- for , the farther I went , the brisker grew the current of the ebb -RRB- , I was alongside of her hawser and had laid hold . The hawser was as taut as a bowstring , and the current so strong she pulled upon her anchor . All round the hull , in the blackness , the rippling current bubbled and chattered like a little mountain stream . One cut with my sea-gully and the HISPANIOLA would go humming down the tide .
So far so good , but it next occurred to my recollection that a taut XXXXX , suddenly cut , is a thing as dangerous as a kicking horse .
Gunn Island Runs coracle hawser manoeuvre morning mutineers night repulse