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Updated: June 2, 2025
The crew raised a resounding cheer, and the gentlemen of the company waved their caps in the air. Yacamo, the guide, stood in the forepeak of the ship, the centre of an eager group. Yonder was land; for what point of it should they steer? Master Jeffreys was endeavouring to settle that question. The Indian was pouring out a torrent of coast Spanish, and gesticulating with every sentence.
Full of thoughts concerning them I stepped into the cabin, and, going to the cook-room, found Tassard still heavily sleeping. The coal in the corner was low, and as it wanted an hour of dinner-time I took the lanthorn and a bucket and went into the forepeak, and after several journeys stocked up a good provision of coal in the corner. I made noise enough, but Tassard slept on.
The boats, guns, caboose, hencoops all the things, in short, on deck were swept away, with a great part of her bulwarks. Tom and the rest secured themselves under the weather bulwarks. They had not been there many seconds before they recollected their companions below. While Harry tried to reach the after cabin, Tom did his best to get to the men in the forepeak.
Often when the lantern was lit in the forepeak, and the watch below were asleep, he would rise from his berth, and by its pale light sit on a chest beneath it and read from the sacred page, although he could with difficulty make out the words.
The fumes were not dense in their part of the hold and they could breathe, but they well-nigh strangled in trying to refrain from coughing. The fires of tar and brimstone and what not cast so much light that they dared not betray themselves by crawling toward the forepeak.
When morning dawned, and hunger reminded the escaped prisoners that it was time for breakfast, they looked about and discovered in the forepeak a supply of water and provisions, and what was of most consequence, a compass. She was evidently, then, the very craft the Gerardins had intended for their use. "I hope they won't get into a scrape for what they have done for us," observed Ronald.
Fid soon remarked that when either of the Frenchmen was at the helm, one of the others was constantly going to a chest in the forepeak and looking steadily into it. His curiosity was therefore aroused to ascertain what it was they went to look at. He reflected how he could discover this without being seen.
His air was that of a man whose anxiety could not tolerate any post except the forepeak. And to him there came Hiram Look with tremulous eagerness in his voice and the weight of a secret in his soul. "I heard him and Butts talkin' last night, Cap'n Aaron," he announced. "It was Butts that thought of it first. The telefoam. 'Run into the first place and grab a telefoam, says Butts.
It was good to be free from the lashings that had galled us so sorely, if we were still captives indeed, and had no mind to pass from the cramped cabin, if one may call the forepeak so much, to the deck where the foemen sat and made merry with the stores they had taken from us. The wind was steady and light, and they had naught to do but rest and eat their supper.
During the course of the morning we entered the forepeak, where we found a quantity of coal. This enabled us to light the galley fire, to cook a piece of pork, and to boil some coffee. Towards noon Sweers proposed to inspect the hold, and to see what was inside the ship.
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