Hozier ran to the forecastle.

He found the carpenter there, standing by the windlass brake.
"All ready, sir!" he cried.
Coke nodded to him.
"Give her thirty-five," he said, meaning thereby that the anchor should be allowed thirty-five fathoms of chain.
From the bridge, where Iris was standing, she could follow each movement of the commander's hands as he signaled in dumbshow to the steersman or telegraphed instructions to the engine-room.

It was interesting to watch the alertness of the men on duty.

They were a scratch crew, garnered from the four quarters of the globe at the Liverpool shipping office, but they moved smartly under officers who knew their work, and the _Andromeda_ was well equipped in that respect.
The turbulent current was surging across the bows with the speed of a mill-race, so Coke brought the vessel round until she lay broadside with the land and headed straight against the set of the stream.

It was his intent to drop anchor while in that position, and help any undue strain on the cable by an occasional turn of the propeller.
"Keep her there!" he said, half turning to the man at the wheel; he changed the indicator from "Full speed" to "Slow ahead"; in a few seconds the anchor chain would have rattled through the hawse-hole--when something happened that was incomprehensible, stupefying--something utterly remote and strange from the ways of civilized men.
The _Andromeda_ quivered under a tremendous buffet.