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They were everywhere between the guns, about the hatchways, and especially on the forecastle and in the wake of the port fore-rigging, where they had grouped themselves thickly preparatory to boarding, and where they lay literally in heaps, while the bulwarks were splashed with blood from end to end of the ship, and the lee scuppers were still running with it.
The riding-light in the fore-rigging burned with a clear, untroubled, as if symbolic, flame, confident and bright in the mysterious shades of the night. Passing on my way aft along the other side of the ship, I observed that the rope side-ladder, put over, no doubt, for the master of the tug when he came to fetch away our letters, had not been hauled in as it should have been.
When all eyes were turned towards the captain, and each waited with breathless anxiety, in the hope that he would give some order that would at least be a relief to their feelings, even though it were folly to execute it, Tite mounted the fore-rigging to the top-mast trees, the surging ship threatening to dash him against the ice wall every minute.
"Cut them clear!" cried Owen. "Resist boarders!" As he issued the order, the pirates, who stood ready in the main and fore-rigging of their ship, leaped down on the deck of the Ouzel Galley, when, with a feeling almost of despair, Owen saw Routh and several of his crew join them. Still, rallying his men round him, he resolved, if possible, to drive back the pirates in spite of their numbers.
Go below, George, she's all right now, and tell Joe where is he? to go below, too, and have a mug-up for himself. He must be soaked through taking the swash that must've come over her bow for the last hour. But tell him to come right up so's to keep watch out ahead." I didn't go below, however, but standing by the fore-rigging kept an eye out ahead.
Between five and six the sun was then nearly three hours high the cry of ``All Starbowlines ahoy! summoned our watch on deck, and immediately all hands were called. A true specimen of Cape Horn was coming upon us. We had got the light sails furled, the courses hauled up, and the topsail reef-tackles hauled out, and were just mounting the fore-rigging when the storm struck us.
"I told him to keep him in his stateroom, and I feel pretty sure he can't get out. If Bokes, who must have an idea of what is going on by this time, is troublesome, I told French to tie his hands behind him, and make him fast to the fore-rigging."
Reeling and staggering to the fore-rigging, I clutched at and hung on to a belaying-pin, and looked about me fore-and- aft.
"Oh, oh, Massa Peter, you hurry enough now to turn pirate, when you tink someting to be got!" shouted Mark Anthony, as he saw my eagerness to be one of the first on deck. The cutter boarded on one side, the two gigs on the other one at the fore-rigging, the other at the mizzen-chains; so that the crew had to separate into three divisions to oppose us.
"Hard a-port now!" cried Pearce, and the vessels came in collision, the spare anchor in the Aspasia's fore-chains catching and tearing away the backstays and lanyards of the enemy's fore-rigging, and, with a violent jerk, bringing down the fore-topmast to windward.
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