You must either jump overboard into the sea or be slain with your own sword.
You don't want to go overboard, after all.
Something you want badly to shove overboard.
A sufficient length of cable to reach the shore or the cable-house is paid overboard and coiled on a raft or rafts, or on the deck of a steam-launch, in order to be connected with the shore.
After the " final splice," as it is termed, between these ends has been made, the bight, made fast to a slip rope, is lowered overboard, the slip rope cut, and the cable allowed to sink by its own weight to its resting-place on the sea bed.