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Updated: June 23, 2025
At the same moment that one party rushed past the doctor's dispensary to secure the mates, and another to overpower the cabin passengers, and the third to break open the arm-chest, we all sprang out upon them. Cobb and Clink struggled desperately, but Mr Henley and those with us soon had them under.
When it was too late, probably from the eagerness with which they saw us dash alongside, they suspected that all was not right, and a few of the hands ran to the arm-chest, while others attempted to slue round one of the two guns the barque carried, and to point it down at the boats. Before they could do so, we were scrambling up her sides.
The guns used for this occasion, were the King's muskets, taken from the arm-chest on the quarter-deck. The shooting was execrable. It was hard to say which were worse marksmen, the officers of the ship, or the passengers.
"Here, lads," he said, emptying out an old arm-chest which was stowed under his bunk on to the floor, "lend a hand, will ye?" Of course we did "lend the hand" he requested thus politely in a tone of command, only too glad to overhaul the stock of weapons tumbled out all together from the chest.
But there being no line-and-sinker at hand, I sent Jarl to hunt them up in the arm-chest on the quarter-deck, where doubtless they must be kept. Meanwhile I searched for the "breaks," or pump-handles, which, as it turned out, could not have been very recently used; for they were found lashed up and down to the main-mast.
The bulk-head of this apartment was at the after-part of the main hatchway, and on each side of it were the berths of the mates and midshipmen; between these berths the arm-chest was placed. The cabin of the master, in which was always kept the key of the arms, was opposite to mine. This particular description of the interior parts of the ship is rendered necessary by the event of the expedition.
Lookout after lookout lowered his head; the young man who was seated on the arm-chest aft began to lose his consciousness of present things, in dreamy recollections of Provence, his home, and the girl of his youthful admiration. The seaman at the helm alone kept his eyes open, and all his faculties on the alert.
He saw the bright flame that was rising above the arm-chest, and he fancied that it came from the funeral pile of the young Dumont, whose fate, at that moment, he was almost disposed to envy. Then his look returned to the grim countenance of Trysail.
We had only two guns six-pounders intended more for firing signals than for defence; but there was an arm-chest, with a couple of dozen muskets and some pistols and cutlasses, and a small amount of ammunition. The captain, having opened the chest, was about to distribute the arms generally among the crew. "Stay, sir," exclaimed Mr Henley; "there are some of the men cannot be trusted with arms.
According to the usual custom on board convict ships, the guards relieved each other every two hours, and at six p.m. the poop guard was removed to the quarter-deck, and the arms which, in the daytime, were disposed on the top of the arm-chest, were placed in an arm-rack constructed on the quarter-deck for that purpose.
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