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The question at that time was one which was much controverted in the service; namely, whether on being taken flat aback, you should put your helm a turn or two a-lee, or keep it amidship? I preferred the latter mode; but the tall captain insisted on the former, and gave his reasons.
Amidship she was low and open, and pierced for twenty oars, ten to a side, all swaying listlessly from the narrow ports in which they were hung. Sometimes they knocked against each other.
"We were running before the wind with our helm lashed amidship, as it had been since the previous Friday, for we were all too busy defending our lives to think of attending to the ship." "Steering about nor'-east, I suppose?" "Confound it, captain!" said the colonel impatiently. "We were drifting, I tell you, sir, at the mercy of the elements, and heaven only knows how we were going!
Some years since, when the author was crossing these banks in a sailing ship, a death occurred among the foremast hands, and the usual sea burial followed. The corpse was sewn up in a hammock, with iron weights at the feet, the more readily to sink it. After reading the burial service the body was launched into the sea from a grating rigged out of a gangway amidship.
Then one glorious day the trolling-lines were out astern, the elders were amidship playing "horse billiards," and "Tuck," the genial purser, was devoting himself to Paquita, when Drummond heard a scream of excitement and delight, and saw the younger sister bracing her tiny, slender feet and hanging on to a line with all her strength.
The actual coming on board from the tug I had missed, but for'ard of the amidship house I encountered a few laggards who had not yet gone into the forecastle. These were the worse for liquor, and a more wretched, miserable, disgusting group of men I had never seen in any slum. Their clothes were rags. Their faces were bloated, bloody, and dirty. I won't say they were villainous.
She was about sixty feet long, with a low cabin forward, a cockpit aft, and a raised place for the steersman amidship a good-looking craft, and evidently very speedy. She carried no flag or pennant. She came driving on, full tilt, straight toward us. We supposed of course she would turn east through the narrow channel to Winterport, or sheer off to the west into the Southern Way and go up the bay.
We looked from whence the sound appeared to come, and there, on the launch turned over amidship, we beheld the ghost of the black tom cat, so large, so black, with the broad moonlight shining on it; and so thin, it was the skeleton of the cat, only it looked as black as ever; its back was humped up and its tail curved; and, as it stood out in the broad moonlight, it did look twice as big as the original cat, which was the biggest I ever saw.
Yes, he had been in collision with a trading-scow, but there were no lives lost, and the damage had already been satisfactorily settled. It happened a couple of miles above St. Louis, and the fog was so thick that she was not seen until they were right on her. She was crossing the channel, and they struck her amidship, sinking her almost instantly. Her name?
Amidship the movement of the boat is reduced to a minimum, and in fair weather it is difficult to realize that you are out upon the ocean. Each passenger at the table is furnished with a revolving chair. Choice flowers, the gifts of loving friends left behind, were on every table, and their fragrance converted the dining-saloon into a large conservatory.
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