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You will die in the fighting-top sometime in the next three hours." The man shivered, elevated one shoulder, and rubbed his ear against it, but said nothing, while Mr. For the captain's present attitude was a complete departure. Always he had shielded Finnegan from punishment to the extent that naval etiquette would permit.
"Inside, nothing!" retorted Bean arrogantly. "Matty couldn't get back to second and they had to run. If that Silas up there hadn't gone foamy in the fighting-top and tried to hit that policeman over by the fence with the ball, where'd your inside play been? D'you think the Pirates are trying to help 'em play inside ball? Inside, nothing!"
Then, of course, the sea was littered with lumber and all sorts of debris which would keep a man afloat. While the abandonment of the ship was under way, the officer who had been in the bunkers, and whose station was in the fighting-top, hurried upward to his post. The port guns were still being served, but their muzzles were inclining ever downward toward the water.
In his battle-station this officer directed the firing of the port guns until their muzzles dipped beneath the surface of the sea. There were three officers with him in the fighting-top and three seamen. Below they saw the perfect order which obtained, the men stepping into the sea in ranks, laughing and cheering.
A spiral staircase led to the main-deck below, and another to the first fighting-top above, in which staircase were small platforms where a signal-officer and two quartermasters watched through slits the signals from the flag-ship, and answered as directed by the captain below with small flags, which they mastheaded through the hollow within the staircase.
The sinking man nodded and waved his hand. "Good-by, Al," he said. As the officer who had been in the fighting-top jumped clear into the sea, the vessel began to go down, now by the head. Slowly the stern rose, and as it did so, he says, the propellers came into view, and perched on one of the blades was a devil-may-care American seaman, waving his hat and shouting.
The shrouds of the after masts were generally set up within the bulwarks. On each mast, just above the lower yard, yet below the masthead, was a fighting-top built of elm wood and gilded over. It was a little platform, resting on battens, and in ancient times it was circular, with a diameter of perhaps six or seven feet. It had a parapet round it, inclining outboard, perhaps four feet in height.
The slave turned aside, swept away a litter of ferns and produced an amphora of porous red clay; he removed the palm-leaves from the mouth of it and poured water into a cup. Sakr-el-Bahr drank slowly, his eyes never leaving the vessel, whose every ratline was clearly defined by now in the pellucid air. They could see men moving on her decks, and the watchman stationed in the foremast fighting-top.
The great white man-of-war dressed ship as she passed, and the ensign at her fighting-top dipped and rose again.
"French or German. Now we'll see what those shells of yours are made of." A huge, black shape loomed up into the moonlight. As she came nearer Lennard could see that the vessel carried a big mast forward with a fighting-top, two funnels a little aft of it, and two other funnels a few feet forward of the after mast.
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