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Updated: May 9, 2025
"Oh, he stormed and let fly a volley of picturesque language," replied Mr Jones to this inquiry of mine; "but what could he do? `Throw her out of the bow port, he said to the gunner, who pitched a yarn about it being the foretopmen who had done the fell deed. `I don't know whether its your foretopmen or maintop-men that are to be blamed for it, and I don't care; but, you've stopped my milk between you, and I'm hanged if I don't stop your grog!"
From the yell he gave out, as the wardroom steward subsequently detailed, the Reverend Mr Tibbits must have believed His Satanic Majesty was in possession of his cabin; and, on his realising the character of his visitor properly, ere he could clutch hold of Jocko, who was then chattering away in high glee and making hideous faces, his invariable habit when he expected punishment after some evil deed as now, the agile monkey, gripping a portion of the ink-sodden sermon in one paw, and the chaplain's black velvet skull-cap in the other, vanished through the open scuttle by which he had obtained admittance, proceeding up the side as nimbly as one of the foretopmen to the crosstrees aloft, where he put on the skull-cap and very possibly pondered over all that he had done.
Fluxion, if the wind continued to increase, to have the sail reduced, though neither the safety of the ship nor of the spars absolutely required such a step. The quarter watch on deck was sufficient to perform this labor. "Lay aloft, foretopmen!" said the second lieutenant; and those of the watch who had their stations in the fore rigging sprang up the shrouds.
One of the foretopmen who hailed from Newfoundland was an expert with the harpoon, spearing with that weapon as many dolphins as he liked; these beggars being in the habit of plying to and fro under the corvette's cutwater as she sailed onward, delighting apparently in showing us the dexterity with which they could wheel about and leap athwart the ship's course as they pleased, keeping up with her or going ahead according to their bent.
I now recollect that it was the cries of the poor marine which brought down the first lieutenant, who ordered us to desist, and we served him as hath been related. Thus far all was hilarity and mirth; but the scene was very suddenly changed. One of the foretopmen, drawing water in the chains, fell overboard; the alarm was instantly given, and the ship hove-to.
"You've broke your leave, sir," replied the first lieutenant, "and now I've to send a boat to pick up the wherry through your carelessness." "If you please, they are two very fine young men," observed the mate. "Make capital foretopmen. Boat's not worth sending for, sir." This hint, given by the mate to the first lieutenant, to regain his favour, was not lost.
I now recollect that it was the cries of the poor marine which brought down the first lieutenant, who ordered us to desist, and we served him as hath been related. Thus far all was hilarity and mirth; but the scene was very suddenly changed. One of the foretopmen, drawing water in the chains, fell overboard; the alarm was instantly given, and the ship hove to.
"I'm afraid not, sir," replied Mr Gilham, sorrowfully, as he grasped the after falls and sprang into the cutter. "One of the foretopmen, who witnessed the accident, says that he appeared to cannon off something below, bounding out from the ship's side before striking the water, when he sank like a stone." "I'm afraid, then, there's no hope of picking him up," said the captain.
Well, this cow was first stowed away in a pen the admiral had rigged up for her on the starboard side of the main deck, forrud; but on the gunner objecting to the mess the animal made there, she was then shifted to the port side, in the middle of the mess deck of the foretopmen.
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