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Updated: May 15, 2025
"She must be strong not to let it in faster. We'll sound again in another half hour." For the first two or three hours of the chase, it was difficult to determine whether the stranger gained on them or not: but, by the time five had passed away, she had clearly come up very much. Bowse looked at his topmasts and topsail-yards, and then at the lee-scuppers, and shook his head.
"Shipmates! take me by the arms, and swab up the lee-scuppers with me, but I mean to steer a clam-cart before I go again to a ship's wheel. Let the Navy go by the board to sea again, I won't!" "Start my soul-bolts, maties, if any more Blue Peters and sailing signals fly at my fore!" cried the Captain of the Head. "My wages will buy a wheelbarrow, if nothing more."
The sailors perhaps ought to make allowances; but heartless as they are, they do not. No sooner is his cleanliness questioned than they rise upon him like a mob of the Middle Ages upon a Jew; drag him into the lee-scuppers, and strip him to the buff. In vain he bawls for mercy; in vain calls upon the captain to save him. Alas! I say again, for the land-lubber at sea.
By-and-by, a stout, florid young gentleman turns pale and groans; three or four officious friends, with twinkling eyes, seize him by the arms, and drag him over to the lee-scuppers, where he manifests still more decided symptoms of sea-sickness.
"What are you at, there, Master Coffin?" cried Barnstable; "are you tongue-tied?" "Here's one of the boys skylarking with my harpoon in the lee-scuppers, and by and by, when I shall want it most, there'll be a no-man's land to hunt for it in." "Never mind the boy, Tom; send him aft here to me, and I'll polish his behavior; give the Englishman some more iron."
I won't puzzle you any more, my Peter I'm spaking helligorically, which I believe means telling a hell of a lie. It's one of your ten-gun brigs, to the best of my knowledge." I then told O'Brien what had occurred, and how the master was angry with me. O'Brien laughed very heartily, and told me never to mind, but to keep in the lee-scuppers and watch him.
Yet the passengers were not the only learners; for, one day, we saw one of the cabin-boys, carrying a heavy ham down the steps from a meat-safe on board, miss his footing in a lurch of the ship, and away went our fine ham into the lee-scuppers, spoilt and lost. We lunched at twelve.
"Have the men had their breakfasts, Mr Hardy?" said the captain. "The cocoa was in the tub, sir," answered the first-lieutenant, "ready for serving out; but they started it all in the lee-scuppers. They wanted the tub to fill it with shot."
The sailors received him with open arms; but before caressing him much, they gave him a thorough washing in the lee-scuppers, when he turned out to be quite a handsome lad, though thin and pale with the hardships he had suffered.
Soon afterward a tremendous sea rose high over the stern, and part of it fell on the deck with a terrible crash, washing Mr Dicey into the lee-scuppers, and almost sweeping him overboard. On regaining his feet, and his position beside the wheel, the second mate shook himself and considered whether he ought to call the captain.
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