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Updated: May 24, 2025
He therefore sat down by the fire opposite the men, and taking a port-fire match from his pocket, threw a small piece of it into the flame; at the same time he took his pocket-compass, and by means of a magnet, which happened to be in his inkhorn, made the needle turn round very briskly.
The big ship was unmistakably an Indiaman, probably a fellow-countryman; at least so we judged by the imperfect view of his canvas which the flickering light of the port-fire afforded us; whilst, if appearances were to go for anything, the brigantine could be nothing else than a French picaroon.
The result was, that on a certain festival his favourite gun burst in discharging; and the last mortal act of which the Major was conscious, was that of putting the port-fire to the touchhole, for a heavy splinter of iron struck him on the head, and though he lived for some days afterwards, he was insensible.
Very gradually the brilliancy of the flashes, as well as their frequency and duration, increased, until, by two bells, the glimmer of some of them endured for perhaps as long as three seconds, during which the entire sky, with its enormous, fantastic cloud-shapes, from horizon to zenith, was lit up with a faint sulphurous blue glare, strongly suggestive of the idea that we were afloat in the heart of an enormous cavern, momentarily illuminated by the burning of a port-fire.
The port-fire on board the Indiaman having long before burnt-out, we had taken the precaution to provide each boat with a compass, the light of which was most carefully-masked; but this precaution soon proved to be unnecessary, the boats having traversed less than half the distance between the schooner and the other two vessels when vivid sheet lightning began to play along the south-western horizon, lighting up the scene with its weird radiance frequently enough to enable us to steer a perfectly straight course.
The dash of oars in the water instantly followed, the whereabouts of the boat being at once made manifest by the flash of the port-fire upon the wet oar-blades, and upon the foaming ripple which gathered under the bows of the boat; and by the time that half a dozen strokes had been pulled the boat herself a very large craft, apparently, and crowded with men became dimly visible like a faint luminous mist driving along the surface of the inky water.
The words were followed by a crash; and the trampling of feet in the passage proved that the slender fastenings of the door had given way. "Now, lads," cried Coleman, "have at 'em!" He struck a species of port-fire, or bluelight, against the wall as he spoke; it sprang into a bright flame, and the three friends rushed into the cottage. The smugglers did not wait to receive them.
"Find Warren, and tell him to bring a port-fire on deck, and light it," said I. "It can do no harm to take a look round, just to satisfy ourselves; and it is never safe to trust these savages too much. Look alive, Roberts; moments may be precious if it be as you suspect." "Ay, ay, sir," answered the man, as he trundled away forward to find the gunner.
"I pushed my way through the recoiling circle, and heard once more that same oppressed voice saying earnestly: 'Forget that I am a living man, Jorge. Forget me altogether, and think of what you have to do. "'Be without fear, senor. You are nothing to me but a gun carriage, and I shall not waste a shot. "I heard the spluttering of a port-fire, and smelt the saltpetre of the match.
A low, deep rumble of thunder followed, which was quickly succeeded by another flash, nearer and more dazzlingly brilliant than the first; and now the storm seemed to gather apace, the lightning-flashes following each other so rapidly that very soon the booming rumble of the thunder became continuous, as did the blaze of the sheet-lightning, which was now flickering among the clouds in half a dozen places at once, bringing out into powerful relief their titanic masses, weirdly changing shapes, and varied hues, and converting the erstwhile Cimmerian darkness into a quivering, supernatural light, that caused the ocean to glow like molten steel, and revealed every object belonging to the ship as distinctly as though it had been illuminated by a port-fire.
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