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Updated: May 16, 2025
The skipper came back to the poop, and stood there moodily watching that other ship's approach, cursing himself for having sailed into such a trap, and cursing his mate more fervently still. Sir Oliver meanwhile took stock of so much of the Swallow's armament as was visible and wondered what like were those on the main-deck below.
I thought that she took it pretty often, considering that she did not like it, but I felt so unwell that I was obliged to go on the main-deck. I went to bed very tired; Mr Trotter had my hammock hung up in the cock-pit, separated by a canvas screen from the cot in which he slept with his wife.
Yet the ship drew clear, and so into the open water beyond the point; but I had seen something as we scraped against the weed, a sudden glimpse of white, gliding among the growth, and then I saw others, and, in a moment, I was down on the main-deck, and running aft to the bo'sun; yet midway along the deck a horrid shape came above the starboard rail, and I gave out a loud cry of warning.
After their examination they were ordered into the "brig," a jail-house between two guns on the main-deck, where prisoners are kept. Here they laid for some time, stretched out stark and stiff, with their arms folded over their breasts, like so many effigies of the Black Prince on his monument in Canterbury Cathedral.
Shake hands on main-deck, Shake hands on bow; Shake hands amidships, Kiss down below." "You are improving on Scott, I hear," said Garth Halsen. "I didn't know you went in for being a poet as well as a Viking." "No more I do, but I know you write poetry," retorted Yaspard; and then Fred said, "Yes; and do you know he has been impudent enough to compose a ballad about a legend of your family, boy?
They were, however, gallantly repulsed by the British crew, and the larboard quarter-deck guns and such of those on the main-deck as could be brought to bear, were fired into the Pique's starboard bow, she answering in return with musketry from her tops, as also from some of her quarter-deck guns, which had been run in amidships fore and aft.
It was a mere instinct to place myself as far from the danger as I could. I sprang from the poop and ran forward upon the main-deck. I was now at a loss as to how I should act. My first impulse had been to rush forward among the men and proclaim the intelligence communicated by the captain. I was on the point of doing so, when some good angel seemed to whisper "prudence."
He happened to catch sight of me and dived, the second ran down on the main-deck shouting some order or other, and the chief mate came to meet me, touching his cap. There was a sort of curiosity in his eye that I did not like. I don't know whether the steward had told them that I was "queer" only, or downright drunk, but I know the man meant to have a good look at me.
As they steered their course, so did the wind gradually decrease, until, at last, it fell calm; nothing remained of the tempest but a long heavy swell which set to the westward, and before which the Vrow Katerina was gradually drifting. This was a respite to the worn-out seamen, and also to the troops and passengers, who had been cooped below or drenched on the main-deck.
And I found that the door did not lead into a little store-room, as I had fancied, but right through from the cabin to the ship's main-deck that stretched away forward in a gloomy tunnel, as black as a cellar on a rainy night, into which I could see only for four or five yards.
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