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Updated: May 3, 2025
It was more, just then, than any one of us wished to do, to speak to him; but, thinks I, there can't be any harm telling him to cut his stick, just civilly like; so I lifts up my head, and sings out, `Be off, you dirty son of a sea cook! But scarcely was the words out of my mouth, than he was away like a shot up the main-hatchway, and through one of the ports, or right through the bottom of the ship, for what I knowed; for I couldn't see, you may suppose.
In his youth he had been a fisherman on the coast of the island of Jamaica: the weather being rough, it was thought unsafe for him to venture; but on the following morning, it being quite calm, he prepared himself for his expedition: after he had jumped overboard, he walked, or rather trod water, round the ship; he informed us the copper was much battered above water, and in many places whole sheets of it were broken off; and after he had made us perfectly acquainted with the damages we had received above, he dived under her counter, and abreast of the after, main, and fore hatchways; when he came on board, he informed us, that about twelve feet of our false-keel was knocked off, and about six feet of our copper abreast of the main-hatchway, besides a quantity of copper in different places, all of which we found to be true after we were docked.
We had just time to spring up the main-hatchway, followed by the howling terrified blacks, when the sides of the ship seemed to yawn asunder; a foaming wave rushed towards us, and at the same moment a vivid flash of lightning showed us the shore, not a hundred yards off. "There's hope yet," I heard Jack exclaim.
No fancy can picture the seeming distraction of the poor unhappy children clinging to their mothers, and the wives hanging over their husbands, lamenting their miserable fate: Shocking situation! words cannot describe it." Captain Nicholls then called the men down the main-hatchway, along with him, to examine the leak in the hold.
Our dripping Neptune in the Lyra was accompanied, as usual, by a huge she-monster representing Amphitrite, being no other than one of the boatswain's mates dressed up with the main-hatchway tarpaulin for a cloak, the jolly-boat's mizen for a petticoat, while two half-wet swabs furnished her lubberly head with ringlets.
Her crew fought bravely, but besides their big officer, many of them were cut down. Inch by inch the lieutenant and his men made their way forward, until the quarter-deck was cleared, the Frenchmen being either killed or wounded, or driven down the main-hatchway or overboard.
The foremast was snapt off less than four feet from its base; and the shattered and splintered remnant looked like the stump of a pine tree thrown over in the woods. Every time she rolled in the trough of the sea, her open main-hatchway yawned into view; but was as quickly filled, and submerged again, with a rushing, gurgling sound, as the water ran into it with the lee-roll.
"It was all your fault, youngster," suddenly exclaimed the mate, turning to me; "you brought me the stuff which capsized me." "And he brought it to us," said one of the men who had been guarding the main-hatchway. "And to us also," cried those who had been forward.
Now `Gyp, you must know, was a rather particular dog in his way, keeping to his own station when below; while, should he be taken up on the quarter-deck by the captain, or accompany any of the other officers there, he would never, as a rule, advance farther towards the fore part of the ship than the main-hatchway.
As I kept moving about, now looking out to windward, now over the lee-side, and then at the binnacle, to see that the schooner was kept on her proper course, I fancied that I saw a dark figure come up the main-hatchway; and while I stopped at the waist, I heard a voice, in a low whisper, say "Hist, sir, hist! I want to speak to you." "Who is it?" said I, in the same low tone.
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