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The rapid exchange of incomprehensible words thrown backward and forward through the shadows of the brig's main deck from his captain to the lookout man and back again, made him feel sadly out of it, somehow. Lingard had called out sharply "What do you see?" The answer direct and quick was "I hear, Tuan. I hear oars." "Whereabouts?" "The night is all around us. I hear them near."
Accordingly, having verified my figures, and pricked off the brig's position on the chart, I made my way up on deck, and informed O'Gorman of the state of affairs. "So we're actually now in the moighty Pacific, eh?" he exclaimed in high elation. "Bedad that's good news, annyhow, and we'll cilibrate the occasion by takin' an exthry tot o' grog all round, and dhrinkin' shuccess to the v'yage.
Twice were we forced back into the boat, and I saw that two or three of the men were bleeding from pike or bullet wounds. A third time we made the attempt, and as I was scrambling up into the brig's channels a Frenchman thrust his pike through a port at me.
Brace felt so annoyed and disgusted that he could find no words for the moment, and he stood there watching the two old tree-trunks coming closer and closer, till the foremost just missed the cable, and directly after touched the brig's bows with a slow, dull, heavy impact which made her jar from end to end.
He had succeeded in securing a few on board, but when returning on shore for a further supply, the natives had set on him, and murdered him and most of his people. They had then gone on board, rescued their countrymen, and carried off the survivors of the brig's crew as captives into the interior.
Todd; for it may not be needless to state that the treasure and the passenger-ship existed only in his imagination. Pending the return of the boats the brig's anchor had been dropped about two hundred yards from the bark; now canvas was furled, and at eight bells all hands were mustered aft to hear what was in store.
This was one of the most exciting moments in his life, for, as they rounded the Bec du Nez, there was the Dorset going about to make for Guernsey, and the brig, under full sail, bearing down upon her. Even as they rounded the point, up ran the tricolour to the brig's mizzen-mast, and the militant shouts of the French sailors came over the water.
The Count here fitted me and my lads up with some weepuns, and we settled that as soon as it was dark we'd man two of the brig's boats, and board first one and then the other of the two schooners.
"Done and done between gentlemen, is enough, sir; not that I set myself up for a gentleman, governor, but I've lived too long and too much in your respected society not to have l'arn'd some of the ways. The brig's mine, if ile will pay for her. And now, sir, having completed the trade, I should like to know if your judgment and mine be the same.
Seen through the powerful lenses of the brig's telescope, Leslie made out that she had once been a full-rigged ship, and from the little that showed above water he judged her to be American-built. Her three masts were gone by the board, also her jib-booms, which were snapped close off by the bowsprit end.
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