Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 6, 2025
The first error I made was in applying my apparatus of blocks and pulleys to a rope which was too weak, so that the very first heave I made broke it in two, and sent me staggering against the after-hatch, over which I tripped, and striking against the main-boom, tumbled down the companion-ladder into the cabin. I was much bruised and somewhat stunned by this untoward accident.
The scuppers were plugged, and soon the waist of the ship, about forty feet wide and sixty long, looked like a miniature lake with the after-hatch rising like a snow-white island from the centre, and upon which a miniature surf broke as the water swashed and swirled with each roll of the ship.
And a lucky thing was it that our helm was down; for as she gathered starnway she paid off, which was more than every ship in the fleet did, or could do. But she strained herself in the trough of the sea, and she shipped a deal of water over her quarter. I never swallowed so much clear water at a time in my life as I did then, for I was looking up the after-hatch at the instant.
He slipped off the after-hatch, and dragged up from the counter a venerable relic of a spinnaker, which was one vivid mottle of mildew. The sail was duly mocked and set. The wind was freshening, and our pace increased. The cutter and her parasitical escort kicked up enough wake for a Cardiff ore-steamer. "Who says a foul bottom matters now?" said Haigh.
He was about to hurl defiance in the teeth of the seaman, and make a second effort on the bowsprit, when Haco Barepoles thrust his red head up the after-hatch, and sang out "breakfast!" "Breakfast, Billy," repeated Gaff. To which the cherub responded by rushing aft with a cheer, and descending the square hole after his father.
Presently, getting the better of my perturbation, I walked aft, and, stepping on to the poop-deck, fell to an examination of the companion or covering of the after-hatch, which, as I have elsewhere said, was covered with snow. This hatch formed the entrance to the cabin, and there was no other road to it that I could see.
They're all armed to the teeth." And sure enough, a set of ferocious-looking rapscallions had boarded the steamer. They looked like low-class Irishmen browned with walnut-juice. Each man had a heavy array of pistols in his sash, and all of them carried ugly knives. The Scorpion waved to the gang, and they arranged themselves around the pile of bales that stuck out through the after-hatch.
Fastened to it are the mess tables, nearly always lighted by some four or five great lamps, which serve to warm as well, as the pile of stuff around and beneath the after-hatch house cuts off most of the light that would otherwise come down there.
When at last I hove the ship to, to pick up the pilot outside Port Philip Heads, the after-hatch had not been opened for more than a week and I might have believed that no such thing as a potato had ever been on board.
Striking the taffrail, the wave subsided, and washing from side to side, left the drowning cook high and dry on the after-hatch: his extinguished pipe still between his teeth, and almost bitten in two. The few men on deck having sprung into the main-rigging, sailor-like, did nothing but roar at his calamity.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking