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Updated: June 3, 2025
"Let go the jib halliards!" was the next command, some of the hands starting forwards to man the down haul; but the moment the halliards were cast loose, the accommodating sail saved us any further trouble in the way of stowing it, by blowing clean away to leeward with a report as if a small cannon had been fired off on the fo'c's'le floating out against the dark background of the sky like a child's kite whose string has parted and let it go to grief, tumbling down from its soaring height, and disappearing in the dim distance to leeward, where the clouds had already vanished.
There was a good deal of prodigality in the way it was poured out and a fine scene of carousal ensued, lasting until after the watch changed at midnight. It was the first time either of the boys had heard the smashing chorus of "Fifteen Men" sung by the whole fo'c's'le.
"Quite riddy, sorr," replied Tim, looking up at the first mate and the man in the oilskin, whom I now knew to be the Thames pilot, as they leaned over the poop rail. "Lasteways, as soon as iver I can rache the fo'c's'le." "Carry-on then.
"One evenin' I was sittin' in th' fo'c's'le patiently listenin' ter th' horrible language in which they reproached me because one o' 'em had managed t' break a front tooth in biting a bit o' th' salt pork they'd had for dinner, which was certainly no fault o' mine, when one of 'em, an English chap he was, an' the worst grumbler of all, suddenly cries: "'Jeerusalem, wouldn't I give somethin' fer a drop of beer just now.
But in the morning there were the jib and tops'l set and drawing as before. After this we began experimenting on Ally Bazan. We bunked him forward and we bunked him aft, for some one had pointed out that the "ha'nt" walked only at the times when the colonial slept in the fo'c's'le. We found this to be true.
I was standing on the fo'c's'le head, sadly looking out over the bows, while the light lasted, at the moving panorama of Nature around me; the dancing waves curled up on either side of the catheads as the vessel plunged her forefoot down, and streaming aft in a long wake to leeward; the cloudless sky above; the vast solitary expanse of the horizon; the leaping fish and spouting whales keenly alive to everything and yet my mind full of all my grievances, being especially wrathful with the skipper for accepting Mr Macdougall's statement against me, without first allowing me to utter a word in my own defence.
"I knowed summet 'ud happen," he whispered in a sepulchral voice that sounded all the more gruesome from the attendant circumstances, the shrieking wind tearing through the riggings, the melancholy wash of the waves alongside, the moaning and groaning of the poor old barquey's timbers as if she were in grievous pain, while at that very moment the bell under the break of the fo'c's'le struck eight bells slowly, as if tolling for a passing soul.
How long you stay aboard depends on your behavior. We might put into the Chesapeake, and if there are no cutters about, I'd consider setting you ashore. But if you like the sea and take to it, there's room for a hand in the fo'c's'le. Then again, if you try any tricks, you'll leave us feet first, over the rail." He leaned forward and hissed slightly as he pronounced the last words.
See how he's looking at it now." He stayed on deck all day in the sun, but, as night came on, returned to the warmth of the fo'c's'le. The food we gave him remained untouched, and he took little or no notice of us, though I fancied that he saw the fear we had of him. He slept again in the dead man's bunk, and when morning came still lay there.
Williams and another man, named Rogers, lighted their pipes and settled themselves on the lee side of the deck, just forward of the fore- rigging, where they maintained a sort of perfunctory look-out on the lee-bow whilst smoking and chatting. "I say, Josh," began Rogers, in a low tone of voice, "don't you think you pitched matters just a trifle too strong in the fo'c's'le just now?
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