Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 6, 2025
The pressure of water upon the rudder had forced the helm hard down, however, causing the brig to box off; I had nothing to do, therefore, but to trim sail and steady the helm at the proper moment, when the vessel gathered headway and began to move quietly through the water on a southerly course, close-hauled on the larboard tack.
All five of the strangers had closed in upon us, and we were now able to form tolerably accurate notions of their characters. The two astern, one on our larboard, and one on our starboard quarter, were clearly heavy vessels and consorts, though of what nation it was not yet so easy to decide.
Owing therefore to his not having inclined more to the south, he had missed that and others of the Caribbee islands, whither those birds were now bending their flight, and which had been for some time upon his larboard hand.
All we could do was to look out ahead, and pray and hope that we might escape them, as we had done the first. Half an hour or twenty minutes passed; some tall palm trees amid the misty atmosphere appeared bending to the storm on the larboard bow. It was doubtful whether reefs might not run out to the northward, and if so we could scarcely escape striking on them.
"Now, lads, give it them!" he shouted, and the whole broadside of the brig, with round and grape shot, was poured into the schooner's bows, now crowded with men ready to board, raking her fore and aft, and killing numbers of them. The Rover's crew instantly rushed over to the other side and swept her round; then, manning the larboard guns, raked both the gunboats in the same manner.
By the time this is done, and you are looking out for a soft plank for a nap, ``Lay aft here, and square in the head yards! and the studding-sails are all set again on the starboard side. So it goes until it is eight bells, call the watch, heave the log, relieve the wheel, and go below the larboard watch. Sunday, May 22d.
Indeed, we did not have to be told that sides and stanchions had been carried away, for the deck trembled and teetered under us as we dragged 'Scolding Sairy' from her stand in the larboard waist, clearing a lane for her between the bodies. Our feet slipped and slipped as we hove, and burning bits of sails and splinters dropping from aloft fell unheeded on our heads and shoulders.
As we rounded-to our antagonist fell off, the two craft thus presenting their larboard broadsides to each other; and, both being ready, we fired at precisely the same moment, the report of the two discharges being so absolutely coincident that I did not know the brigantine had fired until her shot came smashing in through our bulwarks, wounding five men and rendering one of our six-pounders useless by dismounting it.
The ship now lying down completely on her larboard broadside, suddenly the heads of most of the men disappeared, they having dropped back into the ship, many of those who were holding on being hauled down by others below them. It was, you see, as if they had been trying to get out of a number of chimneys, with nothing for their feet to rest upon.
Of one thing, however, he soon became certain. It was, that the footsteps which he supposed to be those of the Arab who kept what Bill called the "larboard watch", were drawing nearer than usual, and that the word "Akka" was not pronounced as before. The old sailor slewed himself around and directed his gaze towards the shore.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking