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Updated: October 3, 2025
When he saw Allen attack the mate, he seized a belaying pin, that was loose in the fife-rail, and watching his opportunity, gave the refractory sailor two or three smart raps over the head and face, which embarrassed him amazingly, caused him to release his grasp on the mate, and felled him to the deck! The mate then took a stout rope's end and threshed him until he roared for mercy.
But it was not these things, not his face or size which drew me to him; it was his bearing. All of the chaps in Swede Olson's house were hard cases. They boasted of their hardness. But their hardness was the typical tough's hardness, nine parts bravado, a savagery not difficult to subdue with an oak belaying pin in the fist of a bucko mate.
All through the fight Lund had kept his head, struggling to the purpose he had finally achieved, to reach the mast-rack of belaying pins, seize one of the hardwood clubs and, with this weapon, beat his assailants to the deck. He stood against the mast, his clothes almost stripped from him, the white of his flesh gleaming through the tatters, streaked with blood.
He had seen coiled on a belaying pin on the bridge a long lead line, and on the deck still unwashed away an old cork fender. Some say it was the mate of the vessel; others that it was one of the Kingsdown men who fastened the lead line to the fender and who slung it overboard, and then, stumbling and slipping, ran for his life back to the bridge, barely escaping an overwhelming wave.
The mate dashed forward, calling to the crew, who, seeing that something was amiss, came along with a rush, arming themselves with belaying pins and any other weapons that came handy. Toley, however, leaving the cowed and speechless captain to Desmond, stepped toward the men. They recognized him at once and paused doubtfully. "You know me," he said. "I'm a man of few words.
I again went on deck, followed by Cross, who would not leave me. Most of the men had lashed themselves to the guns and belaying pins, but I looked in vain for the first lieutenant and master; they were standing at the gangway at the time of the first sea breaking over us, and it is to be presumed that they were washed overboard, for I never saw them again.
No time was lost, for the need for doing something grew more and more evident; and with the young men standing by to calm and caress each beautiful steed in turn, running nooses were placed round their fetlocks, and the ropes' ends slipped through ring-bolt and round belaying pin, to be made fast, so that before half an hour had passed the horses were thoroughly secured, and stood staring-eyed and shivering, ready to burst out into a piteous whinnying if the young men attempted to move away.
Some among them now suspecting what had occurred, cried out that they were betrayed, and summoning the rest to the rescue, they advanced towards the place where their companions were confined. On they came, armed with handspikes, belaying pins, boat stretchers, knives and axes, the only weapons they could procure, with threatening gestures, well able, it seemed, to overwhelm us.
He then righted, and discovered that the mast had been carried away close to the step, but, with the sail, still remained fast to the boat by the main sheet, which had jammed on the belaying pin, so that it still was serviceable.
"I did," Gerrit acknowledged shortly. "The second mate's ear was taken loose by a belaying pin that flew out of the dark like a gull. Mr. Broadrick had a bad minute in the port forecastle after he had ordered all hands on deck a third time.
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