United States or Solomon Islands ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
We at once hailed the quarterdeck, shouting: `Breakers ahead and on both bows! but it is exceedingly doubtful whether or not we were heard, and if we had been, it would have made no difference, for before anything could be done the ship was among the breakers, and a second later she struck, not very hard, but just sufficiently so to cant us broadside-on.
The roll of the drum stayed the confusion and noise of the people at work in an instant, who immediately ranged themselves, in their clean frocks and trowsers, on each side of the quarterdeck.
Altogether, he was evidently cut out for a good working first lieutenant, and there seemed every prospect of his becoming one. He had entered the service at the hawse-hole, and worked his way up, by his steadiness and gallantry, to the quarterdeck, a position to which he was well calculated to do credit.
The commander rarely left the quarterdeck on those occasions, unless his officers were really first-class men. The writer has often attained successful results when racing by putting invigorating life into his ship by these old-time methods which were handed down to each generation of sailors.
We had brass twenty-four-pounders on our quarterdeck, forecastle, poop, and main deck, brass thirty-twos on our middle deck, and brass forty-two-pounders on our lower deck. I don't think, myself, it made much difference in the weight of metal, and we were sorry to part with them.
We would talk ourselves to death, now, only there are only about ten passengers out of the sixty-five to talk to. The others are wandering, we hardly know where. We shall not go ashore in Leghorn. We are surfeited with Italian cities for the present, and much prefer to walk the familiar quarterdeck and view this one from a distance.
Captain Northfleet also returned to Newton the papers of his sloop, and gave him a letter to the admiral, stating the hardship of his case. At the same time that he informed him of the contents of his letter, he recommended Newton to continue in the service, promising that, if he took the vessel safe into port, he would put him on the quarterdeck, as one of the mates of the frigate.
Mease, the purser, appeared on the ladder. "Lunt has not come back with the pilot-boat, Carvel," said he. "I have volunteered for a battery, and am assigned to this. You are to report to the commodore." I thanked him, and climbed quickly to the quarterdeck.
Next morning after breakfast the same man came seeking me. "Come then," he said, "and say your say," and he led me along to the quarterdeck, where the captain stood with some of his officers. He was a tall, good-looking man, very handsomely dressed. I came to know him later as Captain Charles Duchâtel. "This is the man, M. le capitaine," said my guide, pushing me to the front.
Even Jack forward, usually entirely unresponsive to the doings aft on the quarterdeck, put on an extra flourish or so, and damning his eyes, after the manner of the unsophisticated sailorman, gazed appreciatively upon her beauty, envying those fortunate mortals privileged to radiate about her person. Vincent might be the captain, but Katharine was certainly the queen of the ship.
Word Of The Day