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Updated: June 27, 2025
To prepare her for encounters with the ice, the hull had been overlaid to the chain-plates with oak planking an inch and a half thick, and the stem had been covered with oak about two feet thick, over which was iron plating to the depth of three-quarters of an inch. She was a stout vessel of one hundred and two tons.
The Vestale was, at the moment, just about to cross our fore-foot, and was therefore about as near to us as she would be at all I focused the telescope a fine powerful instrument upon her, and could clearly see the weather-stains and the yellowish-red marks of rust in the wake of her chain-plates upon the broad white ribbon which stretched along her side.
As we were perfectly unencumbered, we advanced at a rapid rate, and in about three hours we got up to the ship. We scrambled up the sides by the chain-plates, and were all soon on deck. "Hillo, who left the companion-hatch open?" exclaimed Terence, who was the first who got aft. No one recollected who could have been guilty of the neglect.
We were still some distance from the beach, and under slow headway, when we sailed right into the midst of these swimming nymphs, and they boarded us at every quarter; many seizing hold of the chain-plates and springing into the chains; others, at the peril of being run over by the vessel in her course, catching at the bob-stays, and wreathing their slender forms about the ropes, hung suspended in the air.
Our standing rigging was of wire, this being lighter, and offering less windage than hemp-rigging of the same strength; but, in order to counteract its rigidity and give play to the spars, we adopted the expedient of connecting the deadeyes to the chain-plates by a bolt and shackle arrangement, interposing a thick india-rubber washer between the shackle and the bolt-head.
"Hold on, whatever happens," cried Jim. The warning was given not a moment too soon. There was a fearful cracking sound, the mast quivered, it was almost right over the water, and just as the brig was on her beam-ends it gave way, tearing out the chain-plates on the weather side, and Jim and I were hurled with it into the raging sea.
The Etna's chain-plates were broad as a frigate's; he had but to let himself down carefully and he was in the water without a splash. A dozen strokes took him clear of her, and presently he paused, up-ending and treading water, to look back at her.
We had worked our way forward as the pirates were clustering more thickly at the stern. The bow of the prahu swung for a few seconds toward that of the brig, the mast becoming entangled in the fore chain-plates; we seized the opportunity, and crying out in Dutch and English that we were friends, which indeed our dress showed, we ran along it, and leaped into the fore-chains.
He had caused a stout tarpaulin to be lashed over the engine-room hatch, thus preventing any more water from passing down into the hold there in any perceptible quantity; still, the carrying away of the bulwarks and chain-plates had strained the ship very much on the port side, and when the carpenter sounded the well at eight bells the ship was found to be leaking fast, having already a depth of two feet in her.
As the swell increased, the ship began to roll in a most frightful manner, her chain-plates striking the water every time she heeled over, while the water as it rose beat against the stern with a force so violent that we were almost thrown off our legs.
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