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Updated: June 24, 2025
Its mast is shipped; its prodigious bow-sweep projects like a low bowsprit; the after deck is covered as far as midships with arched mat-roof; coils of bamboo rope are hanging under the awning; a score or more of boatmen, standing to their work and singing to keep time, work the yulos, as looking like a modern whaleback the junk races down the rapids.
Two short pieces of plank nailed vertically in midships, with another piece secured on top of that, formed a rough-and- ready seat; and two other pieces secured crosswise on each side to the outer edges of his raft, and at the distance of about a foot abaft the seat, gave him a fairly serviceable substitute for rowlocks.
The sound was succeeded by a chorus of screams and yells; the contents of both guns had struck the boat fairly midships, and she sank almost instantly. As soon as they had fired Captain Martin ran forward and joined the crew in the waist. He had already passed the word to Ned to get both guns over to the starboard side, and he at once took charge of one while Ned stood at the other.
They saw before them the "gig" of the slaver; and, standing "midships" in the boat, just half-way between stem and stern, they saw the captain of that ill-starred, ill-fated vessel! In the minds of the Catamaran's crew there was no longer any cause for conjecture.
'No, it was too high, said Dimmock in a discontented tone. This gun jumps a bit. Sharp there, with that other shell. Roy slipped it in as though it were a toy, the breech-block snicked to, and five seconds later a second report roused the echoes. 'That's better, said Dimmock, as a flash of flame rose from the midships section of the tug. 'Ah, there goes her funnel! She's a goner.
It was rumored, too, that late in the afternoon of the same day, when the new greaser had complained of faintness and was seeking a breath of fresh air at the foot of a midships deck-ladder, he had chanced to turn and look up at a man standing on the promenade deck above him.
There was a large hogshead with two or three small barrels upon the raft; and around its edge were lashed several empty casks, serving as buoys to keep it above water. A single spar stood up out of its centre, or "midships," to which was rigged in a very slovenly manner a large lateen sail, either the spanker or spritsail of a ship, or the mizzen topsail of a bark.
A few of our people managed to get up, hows'ever, and they got to work with their pistols and cutlasses, and I let fly with my pistol from where I sat up aloft among the branches, and bowled over an ugly, bald-headed old chap rigged in a monkey-skin round his 'midships, and carryin' a live snake in his hand.
There were thirty-two of these barges, each of them sixty-two feet in length and twelve in breadth, the spaces between each couple being twenty-two feet wide, and all being bound together, stem, stern, and midships, by quadruple hawsers and chains. Each boat was anchored at stem and stern with loose cables.
Then, raising his voice, "Starboard ten!" "Starboard ten, sir," repeated the voice of the helmsman. The Commander stood with watchful eye on the swinging compass card. "Midships ... steady!" "Steady, sir!" sang the echo at the wheel. The Commander glanced aft through the trail of smoke at the next astern swinging round in the smother of his wake.
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