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Updated: May 19, 2025
Some had lost their upper spars, others had had their sails blown away, some their bulwarks smashed in, and two or three had lost their bowsprits.
The decks of all the vessels ran with blood, but at last the Black Galley succeeded in beating off her assailants; the Zeelanders, by main force, breaking off the enemy's bowsprits, so that the two ships of Spinola were glad to sheer off, leaving their stings buried in the enemy's body. Next, four galleys attacked the stout little galleot of Captain Logier, and with a very similar result.
The Phantom had not cast in the right direction, and was coming around on the starboard tack, which had very nearly produced a collision with the Maud, the two bowsprits coming within a few inches of each other. "I was going out to fend off," said Dick, as he came aft, in obedience to orders.
The weariless tide came up and lifted the bedded keel and the plunged forefoot, and gurgled with a quiet wash among the straky bends, then lurched the boats to this side and to that, to get their heft correctly, and dandled them at last with their bowsprits dipped and their little mast-heads nodding.
The martinganes flatten in their jibs along their high steeving bowsprits and jib-booms. Shift your sheets, too, now, for the wind is coming. Past L'Infresco with its lovely harbour of refuge, lonely as a bay in a desert island, its silent shade and its ancient spring.
The captains of the ships will see the necessity of strictly attending to close order: and, should they compel any of the enemy's ships to strike their colours, they are at liberty to judge and act accordingly, whether or not it may be most advisable to cut away their masts and bowsprits; with this special observance, namely, that the destruction of the enemy's armament is the sole object.
Two ships were loading when I left that place. I suppose there were masts sufficient there to load ten ships." The masts, spars, bowsprits and other timber, having been prepared in the woods by the workmen, were hauled to the water by oxen. Trees growing near the stream were "bowsed out" that is, hauled with block and tackle to the river's bank.
It was decidedly rough, though the breeze was moderate, so that the smacks all round were alternately presenting sterns and bowsprits to the sky in a violent manner that might have suggested the idea of a rearing and kicking dance.
It was a very simple-minded, unsophisticated contest. The attempt to board the Black Galley was met with determined resistance, but the Zeeland sailors clambered like cats upon the bowsprits of the Spanish galleys, fighting with cutlass and handspike, while a broadside or two was delivered with terrible effect into the benches of the chained and wretched slaves.
It was a noble gathering of the fairest and the swiftest, each bearing at the bow the carved emblem of her name, as in a gallery of plaster-casts, figures of women with mural crowns, women with flowing robes, with gold fillets on their hair or blue scarves round their waists, stretching out rounded arms as if to point the way; heads of men helmeted or bare; full lengths of warriors, of kings, of statesmen, of lords and princesses, all white from top to toe; with here and there a dusky turbaned figure, bedizened in many colours, of some Eastern sultan or hero, all inclined forward under the slant of mighty bowsprits as if eager to begin another run of 11,000 miles in their leaning attitudes.
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