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"That accounts for the supply of tobacco and sticking-plaster we found in the bear's stomach," remarked Fred, laughing. "True, boy; yet it surprises me that they succeeded in breaking into my cache, for it was made of heavy masses of stone, many of which required two and three men to lift them, even with the aid of handspikes."
With each crack of his musket a man in blue was falling. In the centre of this mass of struggling maniacs the men were fighting with gun swabs, handspikes, clubbed muskets, stones and fists. The night brought no rest, no pause to succor the wounded or bury the dead.
But, ere long, perceiving the stratagem, the negroes desisted, though not before many of them had to replace their lost hatchets with handspikes; an exchange which, as counted upon, proved, in the end, favorable to the assailants. Meantime, with a strong wind, the ship still clove the water; the boats alternately falling behind, and pulling up, to discharge fresh volleys.
"The Lakeman now patrolled the barricade, all the while keeping his eye on the Captain, and jerking out such sentences as these: 'It's not our fault; we didn't want it; I told him to take his hammer away; it was boy's business; he might have known me before this; I told him not to prick the buffalo; I believe I have broken a finger here against his cursed jaw; ain't those mincing knives down in the forecastle there, men? look to those handspikes, my hearties.
A square of canvas spread between two extemporised masts, a couple of casks, an empty biscuit-box, some oars, handspikes, and other maritime implements, lie upon the raft; and around these are more than thirty men, seated, standing, lying, in short, in almost every attitude.
As for the crew, they cheered at their toil, incessantly, passing from capstan bars to the handspikes, and vice vers. They, too, felt that their task was increasing in resistance as it advanced, and now found it more difficult to gain an inch, than it had been at first to gain a foot.
There were three axes, two top-mauls, and several handspikes and pinch-bars aboard, and with these they attacked bulkheads and spare woodwork, and fed the fires with the fragments; for a glance down the hatches had shown them nothing more combustible and detachable in the cargo than a few layers of railroad iron, which covered and blocked the openings to the lower hold.
The sponges were of soft fast wood, "As Aspe, Birch, Willow, or such like," and had heads covered with "rough Sheepes skinne wooll," nailed to the staff with "Copper nayles." "Ladels," or powder shovels, for the loading of guns, were seldom used at sea. The guns were elevated or depressed by means of handspikes and quoins.
The action was fought at such close quarters that the men used their handspikes, and two of the officers were killed by a discharge from Captain Gilchrist's own blunderbuss. The Southampton had her second lieutenant and 19 men killed, and every officer except the captain, and 28 wounded. While conducting her prize into port, the Southampton captured an 18-gun privateer belonging to Dunkirk.
As they were, of course, afraid to make any noise by hammering in the wedges, they first worked away with their knives, till they had formed grooves to insert the edge of several; they then placed the ends of the handspikes against them, and pressing those with all their force, they had the satisfaction of seeing that the planking began to separate.
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