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So these two mites, procuring each a loaded pistol, crawled out quietly to their respective places, straddled the yard, and were proceeding to business, when the boatswain caught sight of them from his frequent stand-point between the knightheads.

She was now but a short distance from the end of the wharf. Mr. Broadrick was forward between the knightheads with the crew ranged to the starboard and at the braces, while Gerrit Ammidon stood with one hand on the quarter-deck railing and the other holding a brass speaking trumpet to his lips: "Let go your port fore and after braces, Mr.

It was a spot safe from eaves-droppers, though, of course, exposed to view. The sun had just set on the supreme content of Carter when Jorgenson and Jaffir sat down side by side between the knightheads of the Emma and, public but unapproachable, impressive and secret, began to converse in low tones. Every Wajo fugitive who manned the hulk felt the approach of a decisive moment.

He accordingly came forward, turned all hands to, with tackles on the stays and back-stays, coming up with the seizings, hauling here, belaying there, and full of business, standing between the knightheads to sight the mast, when the captain came forward, and also began to give orders.

The swinging kerosene lamp cast its light forward past the heel of the bowsprit to the knightheads, lighting here a naked foot hanging over the side of a bunk, here a face from which protruded a pipe, here a breast covered with dark mossy hair, here an arm tattooed. The Northumberland had experienced a terrible rounding of the Horn.

The tallest of the two youths immediately dashed off towards the bows of the ship with an alacrity that proved his slow movements previously had been merely put on for effect, and were not due to any constitutional weakness; for, he seemed to reach the forecastle in two bounds, and I could see him, from a coign of vantage to which he nimbly mounted on top of the knightheads, giving orders to a number of men on the wharf, who had gathered about the ship in the meantime, and directing them to pass along the end of the fore hawser round a bollard on the jetty, near the end of the lock-gates by which entrance was gained from the adjacent river to the basin in which the vessel was lying.

If this holds water, it, like forecastle, and after-guard, and knightheads, gives another instance of survival from conditions which have long ceased. Whatever the origin of his title, it well expressed the anomalous and undefined position of the midshipman.

"Hove short, sir!" soon sang out the second mate from his station on the knightheads, when the anchor was up and down under our forefoot. "It'll show in a minute!" "All right," answered Captain Gillespie from aft, "bring it home!"

The mate then took his place between the knightheads to "twig" the fore, on the windlass to twig the main, and at the foot of the mainmast, for the mizen; and if anything was wrong, too much bunt on one side, clews too taught or too slack, or any sail abaft the yard, the whole must be dropped again.

My last view of the brigantine had shown her all ataunto, and although what Billy had told me ought to have prepared me for the change that met my gaze, I must confess that I was distinctly taken aback when upon my first emergence from the companion I beheld both masts gone by the board, all the bulwarks swept away, and the deck hampered by a confused mass of raffle consisting of the mainmast with all attached stretched fore and aft, while the foremast had gone over the bows, its head resting upon the coral while its splintered lower extremity projected some ten feet above the knightheads.