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Once, all on deck were washed into the lee scuppers, and one man washed overboard; but he held a rope, and with it and the recoil was borne in again upon the deck. Lowest barometer, 28° 65'! We were startled yesterday at about 4 P.M. with the news of the reappearance of the vessel. I think that some £30 and the replacing the boats will pay damages, but one doesn't think of that.
His lower spars were cased in tight unmentionables of what had once been white kerseymere, and long boots, the coal skuttle tops of which served as scuppers to carry off the drainings from his coat flaps in bad weather; he was, in fact, the "last of the sea monsters," but, like all his tribe, as brave as steel, and, when put to it, as alert as a cat.
We were both of us capsized in a second, and both of us rolled, almost together, into the scuppers; the dead red-cap, with his arms still spread out, tumbling stiffly after us. So near were we, indeed, that my head came against the coxswain's foot with a crack that made my teeth rattle. Blow and all, I was the first afoot again; for Hands had got involved with the dead body.
The pinnace would have carried some fifteen men, had she been fit to go into the water, which she was not. She had met with an accident while in the river, and had not yet been repaired. She was not slung at that moment, but lying in the scuppers along the main-deck, where the carpenter had for days past been repairing her.
The Captain, who should have been waving good-bye to his lady love from the poop, sat down abruptly, the crew likewise; not, however, before she had heeled to the scuppers, and a half-bucket of iced water had run it.
A few inches cut off the passengers' legs or added to the length of the berths, and a few extra handspikes in the lee scuppers to steady the vessel, would be an improvement; but then one can't have every thing to suit him. Some grumbling took place, to be sure, after our departure from Scotland.
Not ten minutes afterwards, just as Harry had gone below, a squall struck her. "Luff! Luff!" shouted Tom, but before Jack Lizard, who was at the helm, could do so, over the schooner heeled, till the water rushed through the scuppers high up her deck. Lower and lower she went, until I thought she was going to capsize. Harry sprang up from below.
Yet in that glance I saw it the yawning hole, the upheaved jagged deck-planks, the dark bodies hurled to right and left into the scuppers by three separate lights: by the yellow light of the flames in the rigging, by the steel-grey light of dawn, and by a sudden white-hot flush as the lightning ripped open the belly of heaven and let loose the rain.
Then, stooping forward quickly, he plucked the pendants from those bloodless ears, and set the body rolling into the starboard scuppers and overboard to the frothing surf and slobbering rocks. From the cliff a cry as of mingled relief and dismay rang down to him. He moved forward and swarmed the foremast to the cross-trees. There he paused for a few moments to glance across.
The deck was tilting to an impossible angle. Nobs braced himself with all four feet to keep from slipping into the scuppers and looked up into my face with a questioning whine. I stooped and stroked his head. "Come on, boy!" I cried, and running to the side of the ship, dived headforemost over the rail.
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