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Updated: May 24, 2025
Meanwhile such of the wounded as could move came clambering out of the fore-scuttle and began to help; while the rest that lay helpless in their bunks harrowed me with screaming and begging to be saved. The captain took no part. It seemed he was struck stupid. He stood holding by the shrouds, talking to himself and groaning out aloud whenever the ship hammered on the rock.
The rumpus continued for nearly ten minutes, and then quite suddenly ceased; and as it did so the cook flung his legs over the coamings of the fore-scuttle, and disappeared down the hatchway. Some five minutes or so later, O'Gorman appeared on deck, ghastly white, and with his cheek laid open in a gash that extended very nearly from his left ear to the corresponding corner of his mouth.
Yet she was evidently a passenger ship, for the cabin under her full poop was brilliantly lighted up, and through its open door I caught a glimpse of several men and women so attired as to at once proclaim their status on board; moreover, the quarter-deck was also occupied by a group of men and women, evidently passengers, with two or three sailorly-looking men among them, over whom a party of O'Gorman's people were mounting guard, the remainder being stationed on guard over the fore-scuttle, down which I presumed the barque's crew had been driven.
Anxious to have communication with the people on board, he sat down, awaiting their coming up from below. In a minute or two, a black head was seen to rise slowly and fearfully out of the fore-scuttle; then it disappeared. Another rose up and went down again as before; and thus it went on until Newton reckoned ten different faces.
"Then, please, see if you can find him," said the Admiral, "and request him to come here to me. Carline is a very decent fellow," he continued, as soon as the messenger had vanished. "I'll get him to take you aboard and show you the craft he has the keys of the companion and fore-scuttle, I believe and you and he can talk matters over together and decide what she will need to fit her for service.
For our makeshift protection of the damaged companion and skylight, as well as the fore-scuttle, had been swept away, probably at the first stroke of the hurricane, although not one of us had observed it, and already vast quantities of water were pouring into the little vessel's interior, principally through the fore-scuttle.
The order, however, was scarcely necessary, for by this time the watch below startled by the shock of the lightning-stroke, the shrieks of the injured, and that indefinable conviction of something being wrong that occasionally seizes people upon the occurrence of some dire catastrophe were tumbling up through the fore-scuttle with much of the hurry and confusion of panic, which was greatly increased when they beheld the masts, sails, and rigging all ablaze.
We got alongside without being challenged to my great surprise; and, half of us boarding her to port and the other half to starboard, in less than a minute we were all on deck, and gliding softly and noiselessly as shadows here and there; some securing the fore-scuttle, others the companions and sky-lights; while others again were briskly swarming up the shrouds to loose the canvas; the carpenter with his axe specially sharpened for the occasion at once stationing himself by the cables, ready to cut them at a sign from me, while two men placed themselves at the ponderous and highly-ornamented wheel.
That left only three whites out of the plot the Lascars had all been bribed or frightened into jining in with t'others and, out of us three, two was lying on deck, lashed hands and heels together when I come up through the fore-scuttle. "The minute my foot touched the deck, I was tripped up and secured before I was fairly awake, and stowed alongside of the two other chaps.
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