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Updated: May 5, 2025
As it was, they got ashore not only without difficulty, but even succeeded in hauling the raft up on the beach without much damage to its parts though, of course, the unfortunate fowls in the hen-coops had all perished! While Mabberly and the others were engaged in securing the raft, Barret was sent off along shore with directions to ascertain whether there was any habitation near.
But let me tell you right not that I'm worth the devil alone knows how many millions, and that I'd sure give it all, right here on the bar, to turn down your hand. Which means I'd give the whole shooting match just to be back where I was before I quit sleeping under the stars and come into the hen-coops of cities to drink cocktails and lift up my feet and ride.
I did my best to reason with Job and to enlarge his conception of the life to come and of the progress of the soul after death, but I made little impression on his mind. A heaven without forges, fox-hunting and hen-coops offered him no possible attraction. "What thou says may be true," he would answer, "but it'll noan be Job Hesketh that's sittin' theer. It'll be somebody else o' t' same name."
Our skipper afterwards told us at dinner that the captain of the 'Essex' had not long ago been thrown by such a sea on to one of the hen-coops that run round the poop, breaking through the iron bars, and that he had been so bruised that he had not yet entirely recovered from his injuries. Such is the tremendous force of water in violent motion at sea.
Three long hen-coops which stood piled against the wall were laid on the ground and covered with mats; on these the tired men stretched their limbs, but they could not sleep. The little lamp was extinguished, and for an hour all was still in the dark room.
Ready remained on deck, lashing the heads of the spars, and fixing his tackles ready for the morrow. When all was done, he sat down upon one of the hen-coops aft, and remained in deep thought. At last, tired with watching and exertion, the old man fell asleep.
One of these waves a regular mountain of a sea, the water all green, and standing up like a huge pellucid wall before it toppled over coming in over the bows, made a clean sweep of all that was movable lying forward of the mainmast, carrying over the side all the hen-coops, sheep-pen, water casks, as well as spare spars that had been stowed along the deck, nothing being left to show that they had ever been there!
Old and terrible experiences murders and mutinies; distresses on rafts; thirsts and screaming madnesses; naked men howling on hen-coops under waste skies, sea-birds wailing desolately overhead; great ships, man-forsaken, God-forgotten, wallowing blindly amid green mountains that flowed and foamed upon them shadows in shoals, they rose, glimmered, and were gone in the twilight waters of returning consciousness.
As soon as the younger officers thought they might take a liberty, they examined the hen-coops, and selecting the most promising-looking cocks, trimmed them for fighting; chose between themselves, as their own property, those which they most approved of, and for some days fed and sparred them, to get them into wind, and ascertain the proper way in which they should be spurred.
In the meantime we set to work energetically to assist the boatswain; while two or three of the officers remained on board, and, with the few men to help them whom they could get to work, continued heaving over all the planks and spars they could find, together with some empty water-casks and hen-coops, through the ports.
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