It was plain that something had gone wrong, but Jack Cole was not about to abandon a good rope, and so they hauled in what they could, drawing themselves upstream. Somewhere along the flank of the galjoot, they found a noose in the rope, with a cold pale ankle lodged in it, and out came poor Dick. The anchor cable was knotted to that same noose. While Jack and Bob tried to slap Dick back into life, the mudlarks tried to pull in the anchor. Both failed, for the anchor was as heavy as Dick was dead. Presently, choleric Dutchmen up on the galjoot began to fire blunderbusses into the fog. It was time to leave.