United States or Norway ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
It was very dark; but from the way the ship heaved and lurched, and the sheets of foam which flew over her, we knew that she was among the breakers, and striking hard on a reef. The fore-mast and main-mast had gone by the board. The mizzen-mast alone stood. That fell soon after we got on deck, crushing several people beneath it.
The moan, which told of pain and deadly weakness, and the way in which his jaw hung open, went right to my heart. But when I remembered the talk I had overheard from the apple-barrel, all pity left me. I walked aft until I reached the main-mast. "Come aboard, Mr. Hands," I said ironically. He rolled his eyes round heavily; but he was too far gone to express surprise.
Shortly afterwards another fire-vessel approached on the starboard-quarter, but the Ocean's guns cut away her main-mast, and wearing, she passed close alongside. For the remainder of the night vessels were seen burning on all sides.
There were even incisions and fractures in the masts, that stood like pillars grounded firmly in the keel, and piercing the several decks of the vessel. The mizzen-mast was split, and even the main-mast was damaged by the convulsive blows of the cannon. The destruction of the battery still went on. Ten out of the thirty pieces were useless.
Just forward of the main-mast I stopped, drew a pistol from my pocket, took a cool aim, though he had already turned and was once more coming directly after me, and drew the trigger. The hammer fell, but there followed neither flash nor sound; the priming was useless with sea-water. I cursed myself for my neglect. Why had not I, long before, reprimed and reloaded my only weapons?
Pierre François, who, with his boatload of six-and-twenty desperadoes, ran boldly into the midst of the pearl fleet off the coast of South America, attacked the vice admiral under the very guns of two men-of-war, captured his ship, though she was armed with eight guns and manned with threescore men, and would have got her safely away, only that having to put on sail, their main-mast went by the board, whereupon the men-of-war came up with them, and the prize was lost.
In the first dog-watch, from 4 to 6 P.M., all hands went to prayers about the main-mast, and from their devotions to supper. At 6 P.M. the company met again to sing a psalm, and say their prayers, before the setting of the night watch; this psalm singing being the prototype of the modern sea-concert, or singsong.
Meanwhile the wind had been steadily dropping, the sea going down at the same time, and when, just before sunset, the glorious orb burst through and dispersed the curtain of storm-tattered clouds which had for so long a time overspread the sky, his golden rays fell upon the Princess Royal, now no longer rolling gunwale-under, but swinging with a slow stately motion over the long swell, and still drifting lazily to the eastward; her bows heading now this way, now that; her fore-mast burned through and towing over the side; and the flames in complete possession of her as far aft as the main-mast.
But towards midnight her light became very low; and by a loud cry, which was heard about one o'clock, we judged that she foundered. When the vessel struck she told us that she had fourteen Frenchmen on board, whence we conjectured her to be an English Virginia-man taken by the French; and that she had lost her main-mast in the engagement.
Excepting when his occasional nervous contortions brought about disarray, there was a certain precision in his attire curiously at variance with the unsightly disorder around; especially in the belittered Ghetto, forward of the main-mast, wholly occupied by the blacks.
Word Of The Day