Chapter 23: The Ebb-tide Runs
Upon nightfall, Jim sets forth on his mission, only to find that his bucket-boat is damn near impossible to paddle, and most of its motion involves spinning around in circles. Fortunately for him, the tide is able to do most of the work by carrying him out to the Hispaniola; although this is something he might have considered the implications of before continuing onward. I’ll give you a couple paragraphs to see if you can figure out what the problem is.
Before long, he’s brought practically right to the ship’s anchor line, which he grabs onto and prepares to cut… at which point his near-fatal case of stupidity lets up just long enough for him to think, oh, severing this thick-ass rope that’s straining against the weight of the ship might be hazardous to my health. He holds off for a few minutes, but he catches a lucky break again as the breeze blows the ship enough to slacken the line, and he begins to slice.
The rope is made of several strands, and he doesn’t get them all his first go. As he waits for his next opportunity, he takes a moment to pay attention to his surroundings for the first time. In the ship’s cabin, he hears two voices drunk and arguing, which he recognizes as belonging to the cannon gunner and a red-hatted pirate who survived that morning’s assault. He also hears the tune of a somber pirate shanty coming from the shore—as far as we can the tell, the first lamentation of the losses they suffered that morning.
When he gets his next chance, Jim makes his final cuts and frees the ship, sending it spinning in the current. His own boat is pressed against the hull as it turns, and unable to push himself free, he maneuvers himself toward the stern. He writes that he’s able to clear the ship, and as he does a loose rope happens into his hands; acting purely on impulse, he decides to climb. He ascends high enough to just peek into the cabin window, and finds that the reason the pirates haven’t reacted to the ship floating free yet is because the gunner and the red-cap are entangled in a grapple, trying to kill one another. Though interesting, it doesn’t really tells us anything; and Jim descends back down into his boat, which is somehow in the same place in the water despite him specifying earlier that he’d gotten free of the hull. This is all very silly, but I guess we had to pad out the chapter because “Jim cuts the rope” wasn’t long enough.
All right, so did you identify the issue that I mentioned in the first paragraph? Here’s the answer: Jim’s plan was to cut the ship loose and let it drift to shore; but the tide carried him from the shore out to the ship. The Hispaniola was never likely to actually make landfall; and, indeed, the current kicks in and starts pulling both craft out to sea. The dramatic change in course is enough to alert the pirates, who stop fighting—I told you this bit was pointless—to try and regain control. Meanwhile Jim, helpless to fight the current and at the mercy of the waves, decides to do the only sensible thing he can do: fall asleep.