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Updated: June 6, 2025
Jack was among the number, and naturally catching at the first object which touched him, he caught hold of the chaplain by the leg, who commenced swearing most terribly, but before he could finish the oath, the water, which had burst into the cabin through the windows for the dead-lights, in the confusion, had not yet been shipped burst out the cross bulkheads, sweeping like a torrent the marine, the cabin-door, and everything else in its force, and floating Jack and the chaplain with several others down the main hatchway on to the lower deck.
Before leaving her for the night, we unscrewed all the dead-lights in the deck, took off the skylight-top, and left the companion wide open, so as to ensure a thorough draught through her, this answering the double purpose of drying the paint and removing its objectionable odour.
It was about twenty feet long and eighteen feet broad, occupying the entire width of the ship; the state-rooms of which there were two only being outside the cabin, at the foot of the companion staircase. The apartment was well lighted and very airy, light and air being admitted not only through the skylight, but also through the stern-ports and dead-lights fitted into the sides of the ship.
On the night of the 6th, a tremendous sea struck her on the stern, stove in all the dead-lights, and washed them into the cabin, lifted the taffrail a foot or more out of its place, carried away the afterpart of the larboard bulwark, shattered the whole of the stern-frame, and washed one of the steersmen away from the wheel.
He quickly scrambled on to the yard again, resuming his duty as if nothing particular had occurred. We having finished our work came down. Scarcely was this done when the gale struck us, taking us right aback. The cabin dead-lights not being properly secured, the cabin was nearly filled with water.
In five seconds something happened to the gunboat. Coincident with a sound like near-by thunder, the black craft lifted amidships like a bending jack-knife, and up from the shattered deck, and out from ports, doors, and dead-lights, came a volcano of flame and smoke.
All this while our boat was still towing alongside; and I was about to drop it astern, when Jarl, ever cautious, declared it safer where it was; since, if there were people on board, they would most likely be down in the cabin, from the dead-lights of which, mischief might be done to the Chamois.
Why, do you see, Squire, the parson was very solemn, and I just closed my eyes in order to think the better with myself, just the same as youd put in the dead-lights to make all snug, and when I opened them agin I found the congregation were getting under way for home, so I calculated the ten minutes would cover the leeway after the glass was out. It was only some such matter as a cats nap.
Toward the stern, two high-raised quarter galleries the balustrades here and there covered with dry, tindery sea-moss opening out from the unoccupied state-cabin, whose dead-lights, for all the mild weather, were hermetically closed and calked these tenantless balconies hung over the sea as if it were the grand Venetian canal.
'She had, I suppose, the largest collection in the country of tales and songs concerning devils, ghosts, fairies, brownies, witches, warlocks, spunkies, kelpies, elf-candles, dead-lights, wraiths, apparitions, cantraips, enchanted towers, giants, dragons, and other trumpery.
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