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Updated: June 22, 2025
He saw that the end was coming. Fortunately, the jolly-boat had been safely secured abaft the main hatchway, the very point at which the ship parted amidships; and, being lashed to ring-bolts athwart the deck, close to the break of the poop, the little craft remained uninjured in the general rending of timbers and splintering of planks that ensued when the beams gave way under the strain upon them.
The gale when fully "brewed up" proved to be no mean descendant of the family of storms which have tormented the celebrated bay since the present economy of nature began; and many of those who were on board of the troop-ship at that time had their eyes opened and their minds enlarged as to the nature of a thorough gale; when hatches have to be battened down, and the dead-lights closed; when steersmen have to be fastened in their places, and the maddened sea seems to roar defiance to the howling blast, and all things movable on deck are swept away as if they were straws, and many things not meant to be movable are wrenched from their fastenings with a violence that nothing formed by man can resist, and timbers creak and groan, and loose furniture gyrates about until smashed to pieces, and well-guarded glass and crockery leap out of bounds to irrecoverable ruin, and even the seamen plunge about and stagger, and landsmen hold on to ring-bolts and belaying-pins, or cling to bulkheads for dear life, while mighty billows, thundering in-board, hiss along the decks, and everything, above, below, and around, seems being swept into eternity by the besom of destruction!
Excepting the ring-bolts, eye-bolts, and belaying-pins scattered about the decks, this bright-work, as it is called, is principally about the guns, embracing the "monkey-tails" of the carronades, the screws, prickers, little irons, and other things. The portion that fell to my own share I kept in superior order, quite equal in polish to Rogers's best cutlery.
A solitary labourer was paid a quarter to throw off the fasts from the ring-bolts and posts, and everything was instantly in motion to cast the brig loose. Work went on as if the vessel were in haste, and it consequently went on with activity.
Wha wad hae thought but mysell of making a bolt of my ain back-bane? But it's no sae strong as thae that I hae seen in the Tolbooth at Edinburgh. The hammermen of Edinburgh are to my mind afore the warld for making stancheons, ring-bolts, fetter-bolts, bars, and locks. And they arena that bad at girdles for carcakes neither, though the Cu'ross hammermen have the gree for that.
Our stump of a mast, as well as our sail, had been well secured, though I dreaded every instant to see the ring-bolts, to which the ropes had been made fast, dragged out of the sides, and the rotten boat torn to pieces. Thus on we flew, right into the Indian Ocean, though in what direction we could only guess, for our compass, like everything belonging to the craft, was defective.
The blood was streaming from a gash in his own temple, to which he gave no heed, and stood encouraging that panting line until at last the gun was got across and hooked to the ring-bolts of its companion that lay shattered there. "Serve her with double-headed, my lads," he shouted, "and every shot into the Englishman's mainmast!"
The height from the floor to the ceiling, within which space the bodies on the floor and those on the platforms lay, seldom exceeded five feet eight inches, and in some cases it did not exceed four feet. The men were chained two and two together by their hands and feet, and were chained also by means of ring-bolts, which were fastened to the deck.
What! hope to wrest this old man's living power from his own living hands? Only a fool would try it. Say he were pinioned even; knotted all over with ropes and hawsers; chained down to ring-bolts on this cabin floor; he would be more hideous than a caged tiger, then.
The inside was then painted, from the skysail truck to the waterways, the yards, black; mast-heads and tops, white; monkey-rail, black, white, and yellow; bulwarks, green; plank-shear, white; waterways, lead-color, &c., &c. The anchors and ring-bolts, and other iron work, were blackened with coal-tar; and the steward was kept at work, polishing the brass of the wheel, bell, capstan, &c.
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