Passengers were arriving with their luggage marked "For use in cabin," last packages of cargo were being received, a couple of van-loads of fresh vegetables were shot down upon the deck as if some one was about to start a green-grocer's shop on the other side of the world, and the state of confusion increased to such a degree that it seemed to Mark that order could never by any possibility reign again.

Wheels squeaked as ropes ran through tackle, iron chains clanged; there was a continuous roaring of orders, here, there, and everywhere; and at last, when the time for going out of dock arrived, the deck was piled up in all directions with cargo and luggage, and every vacant place was occupied by passengers, their friends, dock people, and crew.
It seemed impossible for the tall three-masted ship to get out of that dock through the narrow gates ahead and into the crowded river; but, just about one o'clock, a man in blue came on board and took charge, began shouting orders to men on the quay, ropes were made fast here and there and hauled upon, and the great ship was in motion.
Before many minutes had elapsed she had glided majestically into a narrow canal with stone walls, and from the high stern deck Mark saw that a pair of great gates were closed behind them, as if the ship had been taken in a trap.

But no sooner was this achieved than another pair of gates was opened before her bows, and the slow gliding motion was continued till, almost before he knew it, the _Black Petrel_ East Indiaman, Captain Strong, outward-bound for Colombo, Singapore, and Hong-Kong, was out in the river without having crushed any other craft.
As she swung out there in the tide, a large unwieldy object which threatened to come in contact with one or other of the many ships and long black screws lying in the river, all of a sudden a little, panting, puffing steamer came alongside and, amidst more shouting, ropes were thrown and she was made fast, while another appeared off the _Black Petrel's_ bows, where the same throwing of ropes took place, but this time for a stout hawser to be fastened to the rope which had come through the air in rings.

Then the rope was hauled back, the stout hawser dragged aboard, a great loop at its end placed over a hook on the tug-boat, which went slowly ahead, the hawser tightened, slackened, and splashed in the water, tightened and slackened again and again, till the great steamer's inertia was overcome without the hawser being parted, and kept by the tug at the side from swinging here and there, the great ship went grandly down the Thames..