.
"So Mr.Stafford joins in dock.

And it seems that he did manage to monkey with one of the cables--keeping his mind on Port Elizabeth.

The riggers had all the cable ranged on deck to clean lockers.

The new mate watches them go ashore--dinner hour--and sends the ship-keeper out of the ship to fetch him a bottle of beer.

Then he goes to work whittling away the forelock of the forty-five-fathom shackle-pin, gives it a tap or two with a hammer just to make it loose, and of course that cable wasn't safe any more.