United States or Poland ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The second lieutenant, who was acting as officer of the watch, being an easy-going sort of chap and rather sleepy from being up pacing to and fro on the bridge since midnight, did not pay much attention to this intelligence. "All right, lookout-man," he hailed back, after a portentous yawn. "It's probably the morning breeze blowing the fog off the land that you see. Tell me, a-a-ah!
This was followed by a deluge of rain, which washed our decks cleaner than they had been since we left our home port, though the first lieutenant was pretty sharp about seeing them scrubbed and washed down daily. The same afternoon, when it had cleared up again, the sun coming out and the waves calming down, our lookout-man aloft in the foretop sighted something in the distance.
"A fleet of dhows, lookout-man!" he cried, fully awake at last, not only in his own person, but as regarded the responsibility attaching to him should he unhappily let our prey escape and so foil his captain's carefully arranged plan. "Are you certain, Adams?" "Not a doubt of it, sir," replied the captain of the foretop, in an assured tone that expressed his confidence in his own statement.
"Sail ahead!" roared out the lookout-man forwards, his voice borne back inboard by the wind and seeming all the louder in consequence. "She's a-coming down end on to us, sir!"
"Sail ho!" he cried, "on our lee bow." Every eye was cocked as we peered over the bulwarks, and every ear strained to catch what followed. "Where away?" hailed the commodore, who was walking up and down aft, taking a constitutional after his lunch, I suppose. "What do you make it out to be?" "A boat adrift, sir, I think," replied the lookout-man, stopping to have another good look at the object.
When you are able to make it out more clearly, a-a-ah!" And, he almost yawned himself out of his boots as he gave utterance to the last word. "On deck, there!" shouted out the lookout-man again, almost before the sound of Lieutenant Dabchick's last yawn had died away in the distance, like a groan or its echo.
"Lookout-man!" hailed the commodore after a bit, "how does the boat bear now?" "Dead on the weather bow, sir," returned the man the next instant. "We're about a couple o' mile off her, sir." The commodore then addressed the quarter-master aft. "Luff up!" he cried "half a point will do; and, Mr Osborne, take a pull at your lee braces. That will do steady!"
This order was soon carried out; when, with our sticks braced round to the brisk breeze, which had shifted to the westward since the thunder- storm, we were soon bowling down before it, our sails bellied out to their utmost in the direction indicated by the lookout-man in the foretop, who was now aided by the eyes of half a dozen midshipmen or more, all eagerly scanning the horizon ahead with all sorts of telescopes and binoculars.
Word Of The Day