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As soon as she was hove short, the mate, on the forecastle, gave the order to loose the sails! and, in an instant all sprung into the rigging, up the shrouds, and out on the yards, scrambling by one another, the first up, the best fellow, cast off the yard-arm gaskets and bunt gaskets, and one man remained on each yard, holding the bunt jigger with a turn round the tye, all ready to let go, while the rest laid down to man the sheets and halyards.
"Beg pardon, Captain Passford; but there isn't a man here that would go to the mainmast if he knew that the forecastle would drop out from under him, and let him down into Davy Jones's locker the next minute if he staid here," responded Boxie, with a complaisant grin on his face, as if he was entirely conscious that he knew what he was talking about.
This was the smashing of one of our pumps from a round shot, the splinters from which were stuck into the bottom of the launch, which overhung it, forming really a figure very like the letter A. "Don't take it to myself, Tom no, not at all." At this moment the black savages on the forecastle discovered our friend, and shouts of "Sheik Cocoloo" rent the skies.
They were satisfied that he had come off safe and sound from his adventure with the forecastle gun. "At any rate," thought the Major, "the geographer is wonderfully bashful." But now Paganel was recovered a little, he had to reply to a question he could not escape. "Now, Paganel," said Glenarvan, "tell us frankly all about it. I own that your blunder was providential.
It was quite apparent that all on board the schooner regarded that ragged pyramid with lively interest. Most of the crew was collected on the forecastle, including the officers, and all eyes were fastened on the ragged pyramid which they were diagonally approaching.
Indeed, some of the Irish sailors in the forecastle were overheard talking together that morning, one of them saying, as he rammed his tobacco down hard in his pipe with anticipatory joy in the smoke to come: "Sure, not that I am complainin' at the same, but will anny of yez tell me why the ship's a-flutter with flags, and the lads all given a holiday, and that old coffee-mill of a cable machine stopped grinding for the once?"
The night was dark, but after a week's confinement below, his eyes were able easily to make out almost every object on deck. There were but few sailors in the waist. The officers would be on the poop, and such of the crew as were not required on duty in the forecastle. Man after man joined him, until some thirty were gathered near the bulwarks.
The things I had fought for and burned my midnight oil for had failed me. Success I despised it. Recognition it was dead ashes. Society, men and women above the ruck and the muck of the water-front and the forecastle I was appalled by their unlovely mental mediocrity. Love of woman it was like all the rest.
He turned and looked on board at the various lights, faintly-seen, with the result that his eyes were rested, while he listened to the monotonous talking of the watch and an occasional burst of laughter from the gunroom, or the regular murmur from the forecastle. Then he watched shoreward again for the faint golden flash made by the paddles of Ngati's canoe.
They cracked a good many jokes at our expense, but were so well satisfied with their gold, that they left the square-sail behind them. They had robbed the cabin, however, carrying off, for me, a quadrant, a watch, and a large portion of my clothes. The forecastle had not been entered, though the men had four hundred dollars lying under a pile of dirt and old junk, to keep them out of sight.
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