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He and his mates were preparing shot-plugs with tallow and oakum, and were placing them in readiness in the wings to stop any holes which the enemy's round-shot might make in the ship's side; while he was prepared to sound the well occasionally, and to make his report as to the depth of water in the hold.

They won't be very shapely, but they will serve to move the boat along, and the ends of the ropes will afford us oakum. We have cotton enough to make a suit of sails, although they might not be fit to stand a strong wind. We have also spars for masts and yards."

The seamen ran to the gaping seams with oakum and with tar. In ten minutes order had been restored and the Philippa, though shaken and weakened, was ready for battle once more. The King was glaring round him like a wounded boar. "Grapple my ship with that," he cried, pointing to the crippled Spaniard, "for I would have possession of her!"

When they find 'em in that 'ere pickle, they go and get ropes, and tie 'em tight round their necks, and half hang 'em to make 'em float, and then haul 'em out. Awful lookin' critters they be, you may depend, when they do come out; for all the world like half-drowned kittens all slinkey slimey, with their great long tails glued up like a swab of oakum dipped in tar.

Sling a man overboard to stop the leaks, that is, truss him up around the middle in a piece of canvas and a rope, with his arms at liberty, with a mallet and plugs lapped in oakum and well tarred, and a tar-pauling clout, which he will quickly beat into the holes the bullets made. 'What cheer, Mates, is all Well? 'All's well! 'Then make ready to bear up with him again!

The child, with curly hair and a brown face, like the angels in a fifteenth-century picture, seemed to be in breeches, for his trousers ended at the knee in a ragged fringe of brambles and dead leaves. This necessary garment was fastened upon him by cords of tarred oakum in guise of braces.

Under the circumstances, the sea at the end of the land was a raging maelstrom, and the counter influence of the raging waves, beyond the point, offered as great a danger as at its extremity. And now the leaks appeared at every side. Despair almost overtook Harry, and he moved from one point to the next with the oakum and the caulking tool. The Professor had insisted on again taking the helm.

Happily, before this initiatory process technically termed "ramping," and exercised upon all new-comers who seem to have a spark of decency in them had reduced the bones of Paul, who fought tooth and nail in his defence, to the state of magnesia, a man of a grave aspect, who had hitherto plucked his oakum in quiet, suddenly rose, thrust himself between the victim and the assailants, and desired the latter, like one having authority, to leave the lad alone, and go and be d d.

The steam blew the flaming pitch all around; the oakum caught fire, and the ship was immediately in a blaze. Many of the crew jumped overboard, and others were preparing to hurry out of her, when the presence and authority of the Admiral allayed the panic.

Make him do up some of our lads with pigtails made of blackened oakum, and in duck-frocks they'd do at a distance." "Heads not shaven?" "No, sir; but they could have their hair cut very short, and then painted white I mean yellow, so that the pirates wouldn't know at a distance." "Humph! anything else?" said the captain drily, but I did not notice it; I was too much taken up by my ideas.