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And the toy we were to burst in pieces was a deep-sea ship; and the hidden good for which we were to hunt was a prodigious fortune. The decks were washed down, the main hatch removed, and a gun-tackle purchase rigged before the boat arrived with breakfast.
We were rather short-handed in those days; and being in the presence of a blockaded enemy, and liable, at half-an-hour's warning, to be in action, we could not afford to be very scrupulous as to the ways and means by which our numbers were completed, so that able-bodied men were secured to handle the gun-tackle falls.
And the toy we were to burst in pieces was a deep-sea ship; and the hidden good for which we were to hunt was a prodigious fortune. The decks were washed down, the main hatch removed, and a gun-tackle purchase rigged before the boat arrived with breakfast.
Raoul civilly expressed the satisfaction it would give him to listen, and stretching himself on the gun-tackle, in order to be more at ease, he leaned back with his head fairly within the port, while his feet were braced against the inner truck of the gun-carriage.
Winchester had directed that Raoul's state-room should be supplied with every little convenience that his situation required, and, among other things, it had two common ship's stools. One of these was given to each of the Italians, while the prisoner took a seat on the gun-tackle of one of the two guns that formed the sides of his apartment.
Two of the eighteen sixty-eight pounders of the Challenger's armament remained to enable her to speak with effect to sea-rovers, haply devoid of any respect for science, in the remote seas for which she is bound; but the main-deck was, for the most part, stripped of its war-like gear, and fitted up with physical, chemical, and biological laboratories; Photography had its dark cabin; while apparatus for dredging, trawling, and sounding; for photometers and for thermometers, filled the space formerly occupied by guns and gun-tackle, pistols and cutlasses.
The English captain had ten Americans in his crew, but he would not compel them to fight against their countrymen and sent them below, although he sorely needed every man who could haul at a gun-tackle or lay out on a yard.
"Remember, lads, we have to make our nine guns of a side do more work than the Frenchman's twenty!" cried True Blue as he hauled in on the gun-tackle, every muscle strained to the utmost. "Hurrah, boys! we've already sent twice as many shot aboard him as he has given us."
The great King Neptune tested me severely at this time, for the stay being gone, the mast itself switched about like a reed, and was not easy to climb; but a gun-tackle purchase was got up, and the stay set taut from the masthead, for I had spare blocks and rope on board with which to rig it, and the jib, with a reef in it, was soon pulling again like a "sodger" for home.
There he stood full of life and energy, now hauling on a gun-tackle, now looking along a gun. The next moment there was a whistling and crash of shot, and I saw several mangled forms sent flying along the deck. One was that of the brave captain. I ran to assist him, but though there was a convulsive movement of the limbs, he was perfectly dead. At the same moment down came the lugger's mainyard.
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