How I should have liked to have been behind the lookout or the officer of the watch with a marlinespike or a capstan bar.

I will warrant that they would not have nodded when on watch again for a long time to come.
"Here she comes; she is closer than I thought she was.

She will pass within fifty yards of the stern.

It is lucky that we had that big horn, Major Mallett, for if we had not woke them up when we did she would have run us down to a certainty." As the steamer came along, scarcely more than a length astern of the yacht, a yell of execration broke from the sailors gathered forward.
"That was a near shave, George," Frank Mallett said, when the steamer had passed.

"It brought me out in a cold sweat at the thought that, if the Osprey were to be run down, there was an end to all chance of rescuing Bertha from that scoundrel's clutches.