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Updated: May 25, 2025
Through the day, many anxious glances were cast to windward; but the weather still promised fair. At last the people were piped to dinner; two bells struck; and soon after, all who could be spared from their stations hurried to the half-deck.
The two then crept in under the half-deck; and, covering themselves up with the cutter's gaff-topsail, which had been placed within the cabin along with some spare canvas, dropped off into a sound slumber, forgetting their sad plight and their hunger alike, in sleep, the yacht meanwhile still floating along, down Channel, in a west-by-north direction with the ebb. Their rest did not last long.
The training-days, or general quarters, now and then taking place in our frigate, have already been described, also the Sunday devotions on the half-deck; but nothing has yet been said concerning the daily morning and evening quarters, when the men silently stand at their guns, and the chaplain simply offers up a prayer. Let us now enlarge upon this matter.
The savoury whiffs which came out of the caboose as we passed made me feel more eager than ever for something to eat. Horner took us down to the half-deck, where we found Esdale, of whom he had spoken, seated on a chest reading. He was a pale, sickly-looking youth, taller a good deal than Jim. He put down his book and held out his hand to shake ours.
Still, I should probably have remained on deck after dark had not the doctor come to us and said, "I have spoken to the captain, lads, and he promises to put you on shore to-morrow morning; so now go and turn in, for you require sleep." We went to the half-deck, where we found that the carpenter had knocked up some rough bunks, in which some mattresses and blankets had been placed.
The half-deck was set apart for the theatre, and the signal-quarter-master was commanded to loan his flags to decorate it in the most patriotic style. As the stage-struck portion of the crew had frequently during the cruise rehearsed portions of various plays, to while away the tedium of the night-watches, they needed no long time now to perfect themselves in their parts.
In the store-room, now filled with fire? where else was it likely to be? on the half-deck, or in the hold? No not probable none of us had ever seen it there. There had been no powder observed in any part of the vessel to which the common sailors had access; none since the cargo was delivered to King Dingo.
I was called upon to witness a scene of constant suffering, daily ay, hourly my heart was wrung with pain, for there was not an hour in which some agonising spectacle did not transpire among the wretched denizens of the "half-deck." I need not here describe the ordinary sufferings of the slave-ship.
There was also, in the same case, a small, light, flat box, containing two drawings to scale; one being a sheer, half-deck, and body plan of a very smart, handsome, and wholesome-looking cutter, thirty-five feet long on the water-line, and ten feet beam; while the other was a drawing similarly marked to the copper sheathing, showing exactly where and how every sheet ought to be applied.
There’s a Black Ball clipper Comin’ down the river. And away the yard went to the mast-head till the bunt-robands jammed in the sheave. “Very well that,” said the old man. “Now get my dinghy off o’ the half-deck and let her drag alongside.” So they did that, too. “Very well that,” said the old man. “Now forrard with you, to the chain-locker, and rouse out every inch of chain you find there.”
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