And when , at last , I shouldered the coracle and groped my way stumblingly out of the hollow where I had supped , there were but two points visible on the whole anchorage . One was the great fire on shore , by which the defeated pirates lay carousing in the swamp . The other , a mere blur of light upon the darkness , indicated the position of the anchored ship . She had swung round to the ebb -- her bow was now towards me -- the only lights on board were in the cabin , and what I saw was merely a reflection on the fog of the strong rays that flowed from the stern window . The ebb had already run some time , and I had to wade through a long belt of swampy sand , where I sank several times above the ankle , before I came to the edge of the retreating water , and wading a little way in , with some strength and dexterity , set my coracle , keel downwards , on the surface . 23 The Ebb-tide Runs THE coracle -- as I had ample reason to know before I was done with her -- was a very safe boat for a person of my height and weight , both buoyant and clever in a seaway ; but she was the most cross-grained , lop-sided craft to manage . Do as you pleased , she always made more leeway than anything else , and turning round and round was the manoeuvre she was best at . Even Ben Gunn himself has admitted that she was `` queer to handle till you knew her way . '' Certainly I did not know her way . She turned in every direction but the one I was bound to go ; the most part of the time we were broadside on , and I am very sure I never should have made the ship at all but for the tide . By good fortune , paddle as I pleased , the tide was still sweeping me down ; and there lay the HISPANIOLA right in the fairway , hardly to be missed . First she loomed before me like a blot of something yet blacker than darkness , then her spars and hull began to take shape , and the next moment , as it seemed -LRB- for , the farther I went , the brisker grew the current of the ebb -RRB- , I was alongside of her hawser and had laid hold . The hawser was as taut as a bowstring , and the current so strong she pulled upon her anchor . All round the hull , in the blackness , the rippling current bubbled and chattered like a little mountain stream . One cut with my sea-gully and the HISPANIOLA would go humming down the tide . So far so good , but it next occurred to my recollection that a taut hawser , suddenly cut , is a thing as dangerous as a kicking horse . Ten to one , if I were so foolhardy as to cut the HISPANIOLA from her anchor , I and the coracle would be knocked clean out of the water . This brought me to a full stop , and if fortune had not again particularly favoured me , I should have had to abandon my design . But the light airs which had begun blowing from the south-east and south had hauled round after nightfall into the south-west . Just while I was meditating , a puff came , caught the HISPANIOLA , and forced her up into the current ; and to my great joy , I felt the hawser slacken in my grasp , and the hand by which I held it dip for a second under water .
With that I XXXXX my mind up , took out my gully , opened it with my teeth , and cut one strand after another , till the vessel swung only by two .
abandon bubbled caught lay loomed made manage run slacken wade