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Suppose you fetch two muskets and cartouch-boxes from the cabin I'll take one and secure it in the fore-cross-trees, and you do the same at the main: for Courtenay is too proud to keep an armed watch." Jerry agreed to the proposal, and brought up the muskets and ammunition.
And meanwhile, as it was evident that a heavy downpour was imminent, I roused up Gowland, and we carried our mattresses below, I repeating to him, as we went, what Roberts had told me. By the time that we got back on deck again the gunner was aft, waiting for us, with the port-fire all ready in his hand, and I instructed him to go aloft as far as the fore-cross-trees and light it there.
It was my watch on deck, and upon the ship being reported to me I took the glass, and at once went up to the fore-cross-trees to get a better look at her. So far as I could make out she was full-rigged; she floated very deep in the water; and the exceeding whiteness of her sails caused me to suspect that she was homeward-bound from a long voyage.
Almost at the same moment the man in the fore-cross-trees, who had stuck to his post in defiance of the cannonade, sang out with a triumphant shout "The air-ship! The air-ship!" Hardly had the words left his lips when a shell from the torpedo-boat struck the Lurline under the quarter, and ripped one of her plates out like a sheet of paper. The next instant the engineer rushed up on deck, crying
"Now, they may chant your miserere," cried the youngster. A second shot from the fore-cross-trees laid another Frenchman alongside of his companion. "Comment! diable! nous serons abimes par ces enfans la; il faut monter." The muskets were again loaded, and again each boy brought down his bird, before the Frenchmen could decide upon their operations.
Nevertheless, the telescopes revealed no distinctive features even after three hours’ navigation. The crew, gathered together on the forecastle, were looking on without revealing their impressions. West, after going aloft to the fore-cross-trees, where he had remained ten minutes, had reported nothing precise.
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