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Hardly had the long-drawn clarion of the look-out's B l o w! sounded aloft than the boats were lowered from the davits and began pulling away towards the likeliest spot for a rise.
Barnett," said Captain Parkinson calmly. He had come from his cabin, all his nervous depression gone in the face of an imminent and visible danger. Slowly the great mass of steel swung to the unknown. For an hour the unknown guided her. Then fell blackness, sudden, complete. After that radiance the dazzled eye could make out no stars, but the look-out's keen vision discerned something else.
I never hears tell in detail of sech a case but onct, an' that's a tale that Old Man Enright sets forth one evenin' in the Red Light. "We-all is settin' 'round the faro layout at the time. Cherokee Hall is back of the box, with Faro Nell on the look-out's stool, but nobody's feelin' playful, an' no money's bein' changed in.
Suddenly, the time-keeper struck three bells, and the deeper notes of the bell forrard, answered them. I gave a start. It seemed to me that they had been struck close to my elbow. There was something unaccountably strange in the air that night. Then, even as the Second Mate answered the look-out's "All's well," there came the sharp whir and rattle of running gear, on the port side of the mainmast.
Sometimes one did not see the blink until the floe was almost at the bows, and when the look-out's startled cry reached the bridge one must trust to luck and pull the helm over quick. Then to dodge the floe might mean one crashed upon the next. It was steering blind, but, as a rule, the sailor's instinct guided him right.
Early on the following morning the look-out's attention was attracted by large spots of white light now opening, now shutting high up in the heavens ahead. It was Tite's watch on deck, and the look-out pointed him to the curious phenomena, which had not before attracted his attention.
So he climbed the mast and looked out and said "O captain, I see nothing to right and left save sky and water, but ahead I see something looming afar off in the midst of the sea, now black and now white." When the captain heard the look-out's words, he cast his turban on the deck and plucked out his beard and buffeted his face and said, "O King, we are all dead men, not one of us can be saved."
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