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Updated: June 18, 2025
They took their drenched clothing off, wrung the water out, hung it on a line round the bogey fire to dry, and turned into their hammocks as naked as they were born. At three the hand-spike knocked heavily on the deck and a loud voice called down the scuttle hatch, "Larboard watch, ahoy! All hands to the pumps, the ship is sinking!"
All being ready, the framer-gives the word "attention," when each man lays hold of the bent, one man being stationed at the foot of each post with a hand-spike, which he presses against it to prevent its slipping. "Yeo heave!" is then shouted by the framer, at which every man lifts, waiting always for the word, and lifting together.
To-day, however, a new experience was awaiting them. Farquhar was an old man and slow, and Yankee, while he was unwilling to hurry him, was equally unwilling that his team should not do a full day's work. He persuaded Farquhar that his presence was necessary at one of the piles, not with the hand-spike, but simply to superintend the arranging of the mass for burning.
They was too many for us; most of my shipmates was killed, and I was knocked flat on the deck from behind with a hand-spike. On recoverin', I found myself in the ship's hold, bound hand and futt, among a lot of unfortunits like myself, most of 'em bein' Chinese and Malays. The reptiles untied my hands and set me to an oar.
"I could not see any one, only that a bag of powder was being thrust along the deck with a hand-spike, and I fired at where I thought a man might be." "And hit him, seemingly," said Mr Frewen. "Now then, we must down with some of these trunks."
There is no devil now. The devil’s dead. As for the old man, he looked over the bows watching the bubbles burst, but the devil never rose. Then he went to the fo’c’s’le scuttle and banged thereon with a hand-spike. “Rouse out, there, the port watch!” he called, “an’ get my dinghy inboard.”
The mate, between the knight-heads, exhausted all his official rhetoric, in calls of "Heave with a will!" "Heave hearty, men! heave hearty!" "Heave and raise the dead!" "Heave, and away!" etc., etc.; but it would not do. Nobody broke his back or his hand-spike by his efforts.
The ground on which we stood was level and very soft, and, having no hand-spike, we had to move the trail of the gun by main force. The enemy very soon got our range, and more accurate shooting I was never subjected to. The other four guns of the battery now came up, and, passing along a small ravine about forty yards behind us, halted for a time nearby.
It was the strong rope, by means of which one of the mizzen yards was braced, and was rove through a block attached to the outward end of the yard. "Hoist away now with a will!" "Hold on," cried Slagg, stuffing a mass of sail-cloth violently, by means of a hand-spike, underneath the binding rope of the raft. "There now yo ho! heave ho-o!"
The captain was the author of these abuses; it was in vain to think that he would either remedy them, or alter his conduct, which was arbitrary and violent in the extreme. His prompt reply to all complaints and remonstrances was—the butt-end of a hand-spike, so convincingly administered as effectually to silence the aggrieved party. To whom could we apply for redress?
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