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As soon as he observed us, he appeared to speak to the crew of his boat, and they commenced pulling with greater vigour than before. He then hailed us, "Holloa, lads! where's Frazer? Are you going to leave him on the island!" We pulled on in silence. "He is looking for you now, somewhere along shore; he left us, just below the point, to find you; you had better pull back and bring him off."
But it takes time to learn all this, and I have no intention of getting ahead of my story, or of my country; the last being a most suicidal act. We received the crew of a Saturday afternoon, and half of them turned in immediately.
Two difficulties alone presented themselves to our view; we were getting short of fuel, and symptoms of scurvy had occurred among several of the crew. These considerations began to impress upon Captain Guy the necessity of returning, and he spoke of it frequently.
That once, upon a cruise, they found out that they had a man on board more than their crew; such a one was seen several days amongst them, sometimes below, and sometimes upon deck, yet no man in the ship could give any account who he was, or from whence he came; but that he disappeared a little before they were cast away in their great ship, and, it seems, they verily believed it was the devil.
Almost before the sound of the shot had died away one of the Filipino boat's crew went overboard with a rope, which he attempted to attach to the monster before it could sink to the bottom, but the turtle, though desperately wounded, was still very much alive, giving the sailor a blow on his head with its flapper which all but knocked him senseless.
Adding at the same time "Depend upon it, that they are not more my enemies, than the enemies of your Majesty and the Empire, and an intrusion so unwarrantable, the officers and crew are bound to resist."
He laughed at Captain Dall when that worthy warned him of the mutinous intentions of his crew, and when several weeks had passed away without any signs of disaffection appearing, he rallied him a good deal about what he styled his suspicious disposition, and refused to take any steps to guard against surprise.
At length, just as the ship had nearly completed her cargo of sperm oil, and was about to return home, she was overtaken by a hurricane, and driven on shore and lost; the crew were saved, and so was the captain's chest.
The officers stood round, and the crew grouped together in the waist. All these preparations made me feel sick and almost faint, angry and excited as I was. A man a human being, made in God's likeness fastened up and flogged like a beast! A man, too, whom I had lived with, eaten with, and stood watch with for months, and knew so well!
But as the oarsmen violently forced their boat through the sledge-hammering seas, the before whale-smitten bow-ends of two planks burst through, and in an instant almost, the temporarily disabled boat lay nearly level with the waves; its half-wading, splashing crew, trying hard to stop the gap and bale out the pouring water.
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