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Updated: June 29, 2025
On this they sung out: "Send a boat with a cask and you shall have what we can afford to part with." Captain Blow then told me to put an eighteen-gallon cask in the port-quarter boat, and go away to the barque with it. "They'll not fill it," said he, "but a half'll be better than a quarter, and a quarter'll be good enough; for we stand to pick up more as we go along."
He went alongside of her in the barge, and, not knowing any better, stepped over her port-quarter. Lieutenant Sterrett, in command, said in his least gentle voice: "Sir, there is a gangway to this vessel!" Before long even the youngsters learned to respect these little steamers.
By skilful seamanship Stewart kept the windward gage of both enemies; and the fight opened with the "Cyane" on the port-quarter, and the "Levant" on the port-bow of the American frigate. Fifteen minutes of fierce cannonading followed, the combatants being within musket-shot most of the time.
We were standing to the southward, with the north-east trade well on our port-quarter, the captain intending to keep close to the African coast, instead of standing across to Rio de Janeiro, as is often done, and keeping to the southward of the south-east trade-winds. We sighted the Cape de Verde Islands, which, eight in number, extend between 14 degrees and 17 degrees of north latitude.
In a short time the outer part of the reef was passed, and the breeze freshening we were gliding swiftly over the moonlit sea. When morning broke, the reef-encircled islands could be indistinctly seen over the port-quarter rising out of the sparkling ocean.
Instead of digging round the Nautilus which would have involved greater difficulty, Captain Nemo had an immense trench made at eight yards from the port-quarter. Then the men set to work simultaneously with their screws on several points of its circumference. Presently the pickaxe attacked this compact matter vigorously, and large blocks were detached from the mass.
The look-out-man alone, high up on the fore topgallant crosstrees, still swept the horizon as eagerly as ever in search of a prize. At about noon his vigilance was rewarded by the sight of a sail on the port-quarter, and in a moment all was again bustle and excitement on board.
The canvas gave several loud flaps. The captain had feared that the heat from the burning island might draw the wind towards us. So it did, but, happily for us, it came from the north-west, though we could not tell to what quarter it might suddenly shift. The yards were braced up on the starboard tack, and we stood away from the island, with the blazing forests on our port-quarter.
At eight o'clock, however, the mist had begun to clear, and then, as suddenly as on the night before, Ned Land's voice was heard calling: "The thing on the port-quarter!" There it was, surely enough, a mile and a half away, now a large black body showing above the waves, and leaving a track of dazzling white as its great tail beat the water into foam.
This came home to me with some force on the early morning of the fifth day. I found myself unable to sleep restfully in my bunk, and went above at daybreak, to see the white hulls of the American war-vessels a mile away on the port-quarter and the long line of the Black Anchor boat a few cables'-lengths ahead of them.
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