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We fell in on the foc'sle, leavin' a large open space by the capstan, where our sail-maker was sittin' sewin' broken firebars into the foot of an old 'ammick. 'E looked like a corpse, an' Mucky had another fit o' hysterics, an' you could 'ear us breathin' 'ard. It beat anythin' in the theatrical line that even us Archimandrites had done an' we was the ship you could trust.
I was mad with myself for my folly, and I tore the note into four pieces before I thought that the bills were in it. But Mrs. Sykes mended them as you see. Go on with your yarn, my buffer." "That bill I paid to Don John for the Juno," continued Laud. "He paid it to Mr. Leach, the sail-maker, who paid it to Captain Patterdale, and he says it was one of the bills in the tin chest when it was stolen.
He walked easily and with strength, a testimonial to the virtues of Mr. Pike's rough surgery. My eyes kept returning to the canvas-covered body of Christian Jespersen, and to the Japanese who sewed with sail-twine his sailor's shroud. One of them had his right hand in a huge wrapping of cotton and bandage. "Did he get hurt, too?" I asked. "No, sir. He's the sail-maker. They're both sail-makers.
One of the ship's pistols, fashioned like a musket, and strapped to his shoulder, was tied to his left hand, which again had been sewed by the sail-maker to the waistband of his beautifully pipe-clayed trousers; in short, he was rigged up as a complete sea-soldier in full uniform.
Indeed, I question if they cared a farthing whether they sighted us that day or not. But they and their men, who gathered forward to stare sullenly as we drew near, shook fists and once more shouted curses. I could see them distinctly, Falk and Kipping and the carpenter and the steward and the sail-maker and the rest angry, familiar faces.
A sail-maker, that spoke with a sharp voice, and Joseph remembered him as combining the oddest innocence of mind regarding spiritual things with a certain shrewdness in the conduct of his business. Thy voice startled me out of a dream, Joseph said, and I knew not what I said. Beg pardon, Master but the word "Sir" you like no better, and it would sound unseemly to call you "Joseph" and no more.
The picture our deck presented on one day will serve for that seen on most days in fine weather: on one side the spun-yarn winches were going, manufacturing spun-yarn out of old junk a never-ending source of employment; Mr Pincott and his mates were busily at work building a boat on the other; the sail-maker and his gang were repairing some of the sails, and making light ones for the gentle breezes of the Pacific; while Fleming and his crew were laying up rope, and the rest of the watch were knotting yarns, making sinnet, wad-bags, wads, chafing gear of all descriptions, such as worming, parcelling, roundings, spun-yarn, rope-yarn, marline, seizing, stuffs, and service of all kinds; the names of which things alone are, I suspect, sufficient to puzzle a landsman, so I will say no more about them.
The Sumter's crew consisted of Captain Semmes, commanding, four lieutenants, a paymaster, a surgeon, a lieutenant of marines, four midshipmen, four engineers, boatswain, gunner, sail-maker, carpenter, captain's and purser's clerks, twelve marines, and seventy-two seamen.
It must have been a lucky shot. The boy was perforated through the heart or very near to the heart we have no time for post-mortems on the Elsinore. Tom Spink and the second sail-maker, Uchino, sprang to Henry's side. The revolver continued to go off through the ventilator slits, and the bullets thudded into the front of the half wheel-house all about them.
But he did not betray his thoughts or his emotions, quick as were the former, and intense as were the latter. He took up the mended bill, and looked it over several times. "That's the white cross of Denmark," said he, suppressing his emotions. "Isn't the bill good?" asked the sail-maker. "Good as gold for eighty-eight cents on a dollar," replied the captain.
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