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To prevent, as far as we could, some of these annoyances, we spread the awnings over the decks, and triced up the curtains, fore and aft, while every art was used to introduce air to all parts of the ship. The half-ports were removed from the main-deck guns, the gratings put on one side, and as many windsails sent down the hatchways as could be made to catch a puff of air.
There were windsails stretched from the after-bridge to mattresses on the quarter-deck, down which one shot through the dizzy darkness to end in a delicious "wump" at the bottom. The after-capstan was a roundabout, with its squealing passengers suspended from capstan-bars.
The carpenter has rigged up a punkah, and the men have improvised some double awnings. At Colombo they made some windsails, so we are now better off than on our last hot voyage. It has been really hotter than ever to-day, but a pleasant breeze sprang up in the afternoon. Sunday, April 8th. A delightful fresh morning after a cool night.
"That's not at all a bad simile, youngster," observed the commander, who was just coming down from the poop, after seeing everything snug and that the awnings had been spread over the decks, with windsails rigged up leading through the hatchways to introduce what air there was to the heated atmosphere below.
In those boundless solitudes, with nothing that eye can see or that common ear can hear to remind her that she is not the sole inhabitant of the universe, the wild ass "snuffeth up the wind in her desire," and lifting her windsails to the hot blast, hears, borne across miles of white sand and shimmering mirage, the joyful reverberations of that music which tells of old comrades and boon companions scouring the plain and kicking up their exultant heels.
By breakfast-time we were making so much better weather of it that we were able to open the hatches, and the windsails were rigged up to let down some fresh air below, which enabled us to have a better meal than we expected; so our hot cocoa and bread possessed an additional relish, not only from this circumstance, but also from the fact of our not having enjoyed anything hot since the previous day at dinner, the galley fires having been swamped out just before tea-time, thus forcing us to turn in supperless.
The old mill at Selborne, with its dilapidated windsails, presents a picturesque appearance, and up on the chalk-hills, where there is a far-away view over the pleasant vale beyond, is the Wishing Stone, erected on a little mound among the trees.
She laughed merrily. "You pay a pretty compliment, Mr. Gerrard!" "Double-O" Gerrard reddened and lapsed into bashful silence. "It is agreed, then. We are to have a children's party, and I may come. Won't the children be excited!" "Torps, what are you going to do with them," asked the First Lieutenant, "besides breaking their necks by pushing them down the windsails?"
Some two or three are open, and women, with drooping heads bent down, are talking to the inmates. The whole is lighted by a skylight, but it is fast closed; and from the roof there dangle, limp and drooping, two useless windsails. A man with keys appears, to show us round. A good-looking fellow, and, in his way, civil and obliging. 'Are those black doors the cells? 'Yes. 'Are they all full?
Before we left England we could not make ourselves believe what we were told about heat in the tropics; so we started with very few windsails and without any punkahs or double awnings. It was all very well in the Atlantic or Pacific, but between Hongkong and Singapore the state of things became simply unbearable.
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