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Before she had got to the door he was beside her. "Miss Foster, Miss Foster," he said, and his tone was so different from what I had ever heard from him before that I could hardly believe it. He was a big man, it must be remembered, and still on him were the double-banked oilskins and heavy jack-boots he wore through the race.
Eight of the remaining sixteen men of the crew were then directed to take their places around the ladies' inclosure, along with Mr Adams and Frank Harness, while the other eight hands, under the command of Mr McCarthy, were told off to the jolly-boat, which was provided with double-banked oars and attached to the raft by a stout tow-rope it being the intention of Mr Meldrum, who remained on the raft as deputy commander-in-chief of the whole party in poor Captain Dinks' place, to relieve the rowers every alternate hour, so that all should have an equal share in the arduous task of towing, a job which would tax all their strength.
The Americans now gathering up their strength, irritated by their repeated failures on the land, and disheartened, but yet not discouraged by their original weakness on the lakes, were about, in some degree, to be compensated more suitably for their inland losses than by the capture or rather by the negative kind of advantage of destroying at considerable cost and risk, frigates and sloops of war at sea, inferior in every respect, the bravery of the sailors and the skill of the officers excepted, to the huge and properly much esteemed American double-banked frigates and long-gunned brigs.
These two were peppering away at the leading proa and the junks, as they paddled in hastily towards the ship with their long double-banked sweeps, anxious to get in close alongside and so to be sheltered by our hull from the murderous and rapid fire which the wielders of the Martini-Henrys rained on them.
At the mate’s orders, the two apprentices and the sailors in the bow took their seats by the rowers and double-banked the oars. “The skipper is getting every rag of sail off her,” the mate said, as he looked ahead. “There is another gun! It is getting darker and darker, I don’t suppose they can make us out. Give way, lads.” The gloom deepened rapidly.
These smuggling boats are long, swift, craft, that have double-banked paddles, frequently to the number of sixty men. They are armed, and are swift as arrows. When all is ready, they appear suddenly on the water, and dash alongside of the vessel for which they are bound, and find the labourers of the purchaser standing at the ports, with the bags of cylinders ready.
This became the more necessary in the early stages of the work, as places could not be spared for more than two, or at most three, seamen to each boat, who were always stationed, one at the bow, to use the boat-hook in fending or pushing off, and the other at the aftermost oar, to give the proper time in rowing, while the middle oars were double-banked, and rowed by the artificers.
It was what is termed double-banked, and the oars were pulled by "slaves," that is to say, the crews of trading vessels recently captured. Pungarin had more slaves than he knew what to do with on that occasion. He had been unusually successful in his captures.
He owned, as well as commanded, one of those curious vessels with one mast and a mighty square-sail, fifty oars or so, double-banked, a dragon's tail in the stern and a horse's head at the prow, in which the Phoenicians of old and other mariners were wont to drive an extensive and lucrative trade in the Mediterranean; sometimes pushing their adventurous keels beyond the Pillars of Hercules, visiting the distant Cassiterides or Tin Isles, and Albion, and even penetrating northward into the Baltic, in search of tin, amber, gold, and what not.
There's Brian Boru and Lord Salisbury there double-banked on the same locker, and nothing doing on any Irish question. There's the lad that sleeps in the peak and not a single hallelujah of praise for his darling Lucille. The other one the wild man that sings the Bobbie Burns songs not a shriek out of him. And Bill and John no longer spoiling their eyesight on bad print.
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