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"Some on you's took it for a game, and Lufftenant Staples ain't the man to stand no larks. `Where's that there boathook, Joe Dance? he says. `Produce it 'twonce, sir, or `Ay, ay, sir. Starn all it is. Where are you coming? Pull. Starboard there On Portsmouth hard in Portsmouth town. Three cheers, my merry lads Now then, pull pull hard Ay, ay, sir Now all together, my lads!"
"And every minute their fire grew hotter, and their aim truer down came our mizzen-topgallant-mast, and hung down over our quarter; away went our bowsprit but we held on till we struck their line 'twixt the 'Santissima Trinidado' and the 'Beaucenture, and, as we crossed the Spanisher's wake, so close that our yard-arms grazed her gilded starn, up flashed his Honor's sword, 'Now, lads! cried he, hailing the guns and then why then, afore I'd took my whistle from my lips, the old 'Bully-Sawyer, as had been so patient, so very patient, let fly wi' every starboard gun as it bore, slap into the great Spanisher's towering starn, and, a moment arter, her larboard guns roared and flamed as her broadside smashed into the 'Beaucenture, and 'bout five minutes arterwards we fell aboard o' the 'Fougeux, and there we lay, young sir, and fought it out yard-arm to yard-arm, and muzzle to muzzle, so close that the flame o' their guns blackened and scorched us, and we was obliged to heave buckets o' water, arter every discharge, to put out the fire.
Oh, starn! and the oars bent like canes as we obeyed there was an upheaval of the sea just ahead; then slowly, majestically, the vast body of our foe rose into the air. Up, up it went while my heart stood still, until the whole of that immense creature hung on high, apparently motionless, and then fell a hundred tons of solid flesh back into the sea.
"And don't let me have to repeat my orders." "Very good indeed, my lord. Very good indeed." He trotted forward, barking fussily. Nelson climbed on to the poop, Kit at his heels, and leaned over the side listlessly. "What's that boat under my starn?" "The boat I came off in, my lord." "Ah, I forgot.... Is that a dead man in the starn-sheets?" "No, my lord. That's Mr.
Once, indeed, in a sort of frenzy, when for an instant we lay side by side with him, I drew my sheath-knife, and plunged it repeatedly into the blubber, as if I were assisting is his destruction. Suddenly the mate gave a howl: "Starn all starn all! oh, starn!" and the oars bent like canes as we obeyed.
The tafferel is not six inches below the surface of the water, and half an hour of heaving will bring the starn in sight." "Your work seems ingeniously contrived to get up one extremity of the vessel, Don Esteban," returned the Mexican; "but are you quite certain that the doubloons are in her?"
Seemed happier, he did, and I overheard him say to the party as they stood looking over the starn at the wake that ran away in two white lines with a gull, or two circling within a stone's throw in waiting for whatever the cook had to heave overboard I heard him say: "'Every mile'll make it more difficult; besides, says he, with a sweep of his hand, 'what a waste this is!
"Nineteen, if I remember rightly," replied I. "Very well; now if a small boat of about twenty-five feet long or thereabouts, open, mind you, from stem to starn, could live twenty hours with nineteen people in her, as the London's pinnace did, in weather that the old ship herself couldn't stand up agin, how long will a full-decked boat of, say, thirty to thirty-five feet long, carefully constructed, and in good trim, live with only two men in her?
I'm always afraid of my starn and my rudder when among the field-ice; whereas there is no danger hereabouts that cannot be seen before a vessel is on it. Give me my eyes, and I feel that I have a chance." "There is some truth in that; but I wish these channels were a good deal wider than they are. A man may feel a berg as well as see it.
If that gust had a-struck us aback our masts would have gone sartin, and it's a toss-up but what we'd a-gone down starn fust afore she'd a-backed round. Next day we giv' old Wiggins a funeral fit for the Emperor of Rooshy, and he well desarved it.
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