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Some of them may be glad to have me. I shall try them all before I give up my design." "Why did they refuse me?" I asked myself, continuing my soliloquy. "Why? They gave no reason; what could it have been? Ha! my size it was! They compared me to a marlin-spike, and a belaying-pin. I know what a marlin-spike is, and a belaying-pin, too.
Fate and the fog had brought me here, the one solitary soul perhaps who by the chain of circumstances had both the will and the opportunity to wrest their secret from these four men. The marlin-spike! Where the lower half of the window met the sill it sank into a shallow groove.
So saying, he made another grab at the little creature, which, just fluttering off the rigging in time, managed for the moment to escape him and perched on the backstay, when the cruel lad hove a marlin-spike at it.
He started at my words, uttering, as he did so, a sailor's exclamation of surprise. "Shiver my timbers!" was the phrase. "Shiver my timbers! if 'tain't the little marlin-spike as boarded us a-port!" "Him as wanted to go a seelorin?" cried several in a breath. "The same, for sartin'." "Yes," I answered, "it is; I am the same."
What boy does think himself much less than a man? But now I was convinced of my littleness. No wonder Jack Waters had called me a sprat, and his comrades had compared me to a marlin-spike and a belaying-pin. The knowledge I had gained of my Lilliputian stature put me all out of heart with myself, and my designs now assumed a more gloomy aspect.
We saw several tropical birds, which the sailors call boatswains, in consequence of their having one long feather for a tail, which they term a marlin-spike—an iron instrument sharp at one end and knobbed at the other, used in splicing ropes, etc.
In ascending it was difficult to keep the feet on the ratlins, and in descending, it required a strong effort to force the body down towards the centre of gravity. I make no doubt, had I groped my way up to the cross-trees, and leaped overboard my body would have struck the water, thirty or forty yards from the ship. A marlin-spike falling from either top, would have endangered no one on deck.
This crew's dissatisfied; this crew don't vally bullying a marlin-spike; this crew has its rights like other crews, I'll make so free as that; and by your own rules, I take it we can talk together. I ax your pardon, sir, acknowledging you for to be captaing at this present; but I claim my right, and steps outside for a council."
"Ay, ay!" came in half-smothered tones, and this was followed by the sound of someone turning out of a bunk. The next minute Bostock's bloodstained face appeared, with a tremendous swelling on the brow, the result evidently of a blow given with marlin-spike or club. "Bob!" cried Carey, wildly, as he caught the old sailor's hand. "Master Carey!" cried the injured man, stumbling out as if giddy.
With her heavy load of guns and armor she drew 22 feet aft and could work up a speed of barely 5 knots. Faced with this danger, the North hurriedly adopted Ericsson's plan for the Monitor, which was contracted for on October 4, 1861, and launched after 100 days. Old marlin-spike seamen pooh-poohed this "cheesebox on a raft."
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