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I was the only midshipman; the other youngsters consisted of five apprentices. We occupied a deck-house a little forward of the main-hatch. This house was divided by a fore and aft bulkhead; the apprentices lived in the port compartment, the third and fourth mates and myself slung our hammocks on the starboard side.
But supposing no opportunity of this kind to offer, then I ought to be able to find in the vessel materials fit for the construction of a boat, if, indeed, I met not with a pinnace of her own stowed under the main-hatch, for there was certainly no boat on deck.
Forward lay the windlass and its tackle, with the chain and hemp cables, all very unpleasant to trip over; the foc'sle stovepipe, and the gurry-butts by the foc'sle hatch to hold the fish-livers. Aft of these the foreboom and booby of the main-hatch took all the space that was not needed for the pumps and dressing-pens.
Misson seeing one of 'em jump down the Main-Hatch with a lighted Match, suspecting his Design, resolutely leap'd after him, and reaching him with his Sabre, laid him dead the Moment he going to set Fire to the Powder. The Victoire pouring in more Men, the Mahometans quitted the Decks, finding Resistance vain, and fled for Shelter to the Cook Room, Steerage and Cabbins, and some run between Decks.
"Wait till our mainsail's bent, an' she walks home with all her salt wet. There's some work first, though." He pointed down into the darkness of the open main-hatch between the two masts. "What's that for? It's all empty," said Harvey. "You an' me an' a few more hev got to fill it," said Dan. "That's where the fish goes." "Alive?" said Harvey. "Well, no.
"'Ow 'orribly 'eavy it is, hain't it?" gasped Mivins, after dancing round the main-hatch till he was nearly exhausted. "Heavy!" cried Buzzby, whose appearance was such that you would have hesitated to say whether his breadth or length was greater "heavy, d'ye say? It must be your sperrits wot's heavy, then, for I feel as light as a feather myself."
Then, and before a final inspection by the boatswain in the diving-suit assured them that the last shot-hole was covered, they began bailing from the main-hatch, and when the water perceptibly lowered the first index of success a feverish yell arose and continued, while nude lunatics wrestled and floundered waist-deep on the flooded deck.
He saw himself, stripped to the waist, with naked fists, fighting his great fight with Liverpool Red in the forecastle of the Susquehanna; and he saw the bloody deck of the John Rogers, that gray morning of attempted mutiny, the mate kicking in death- throes on the main-hatch, the revolver in the old man's hand spitting fire and smoke, the men with passion-wrenched faces, of brutes screaming vile blasphemies and falling about him and then he returned to the central scene, calm and clean in the steadfast light, where Ruth sat and talked with him amid books and paintings; and he saw the grand piano upon which she would later play to him; and he heard the echoes of his own selected and correct words, "But then, may I not be peculiarly constituted to write?"
Though the barrel of rum broached on the main-hatch was but slightly lowered, their sleep was heavy; scurvy-tainted men at the end of a Cape Horn passage may not drink long or deeply.
He ordered us to commence throwing the teas overboard, in order to ascertain, if possible, the extent of the injury. A place was broken out in the wake of the main-hatch, and a passage was opened down into the lower-hold, where we met the water. In the mean time, a South-Sea man we had picked up at Canton, dove down under the lee of the bilge of the ship.
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