Then I set off in a pinnace to find my three ships, which were now lading up and down among the creeks.

True, she had patients and a doctor on board when a pinnace from one of our cruisers examined her, but she also had machine-guns mounted and gun emplacements screwed to her deck, and all the adaptations required for a commerce raider.

A zealous royalist, he was in 1643 appointed Lieutenant-General of the King's forces in the counties of Lincoln, Rutland, Huntingdon, Cambridge, and Norfolk, and soon after taking up this command was accidentally shot near Gainsborough, when being carried off in a pinnace as a prisoner to Hull by the Parliamentary Army.

We cast out our anchors at certain islands, which lie a few furlongs this side the place, and sent the pinnace, with the captain and two stout seamen, to reconnoitre the spot, in order to see if it were in a peaceful state or not.

Should they not find the frame and planks of the pinnace, as Betts seemed to think they would, they must go to work and get out the best frame they could themselves, and construct such a craft as their own skill could contrive.

When Bob, from time to-time, insisted on his account of the materials for the pinnace being in the ship, Mark had listened incredulously, unconscious himself how much his mind had been occupied by Bridget when this part of the cargo had been taken in, and unwilling to believe such an acquisition could have been made without his knowledge.

The agitation and revulsion of feeling produced in Mark by the discovery of the materials of the pinnace, were so great as to prevent him from maturing any plan for several days.

Should the water be actually driven upon the Reef, so as to admit of a current to wash across it, or the waves to roll along its surface, the pinnace would be in the greatest danger of being carried off before it could be even launched.

It might be six or eight months before they could be ready to get the pinnace into the water, and it now wanted but six to the stormy season.

It was an important day on the Reef when the keel of the pinnace was laid.

On examining his materials, Mark ascertained that the boat-builders had marked and numbered each portion of the frame, each plank, and everything else that belonged to the pinnace.

This gave something like a measurement of eleven tons; the pinnace having been intended for a craft a trifle smaller than this.

A quantity of old sheet-copper, that had run its time on a vessel's bottom, was brought to light, marked "copper for the pinnace."

In all, Mark and Betts were eight weeks, hard at work, putting their pinnace together.

Betts was of opinion, therefore, that it might be well to stow the provisions and water they intended to use in the pinnace, while she was on the stocks, as they could work round her so much the more easily then than afterwards.

Two grapnels, or rather one grapnel, and a small kedge, were found among the pinnace's materials, everything belonging to her having been stowed in the same part of the ship.

Then, the preservation of the ship was no longer a motive of the first consideration with them; that of the pinnace being the thing now most to be regarded.

To his surprise, on looking round for Bob, whom he thought to be at work securing property near the gateway, he ascertained that the honest fellow had waded down to the ship-yard, and clambered on board the pinnace, with a view to take care of her.

Mark made a bound down the hill, intending to throw himself into the racing surf, and to swim off to the aid of Betts; but, pausing an instant to choose a spot at which to get down the steep, he looked towards the ship-yard, and saw the pinnace lifted on a sea, and washed fairly clear of the land!

It was a proof that the Neshamony was well modelled, that she began to draw ahead as soon as the wind took her fairly on her broadside, when Betts shifted the helm, and the pinnace fell slowly off.

He passed much of the week he was shut up in the ship in her topmast-cross-trees, vainly examining the sea to leeward, in the hope of catching a distant view of the pinnace endeavouring to bear up through the reefs.

The pinnace was well provisioned, had plenty of water, and, tempests excepted, was quite equal to navigating the Pacific; and there was a faint hope that Bob might continue his course to the eastward, with a certainty of reaching some part of South America in time.

Mark had learned so much in putting the pinnace together, that he believed himself equal to this new undertaking.

Having liberty from my lord Duke to make choice from among them all, I chose that pinnace before the rest, supposing she would have proved the best, which fell out afterwards cleane contrary.

I returned to the ship after a short cruise in the pinnace sent away with Lieutenant Simpson to ascertain whether a passage for the ship to the eastward existed between Piron Island and South-east Island.