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Updated: June 27, 2025
The seaman's appetite was indeed so sharp that he did not vouchsafe a reply. The prisoners in the dark corner seemed much in the same condition, but their anxiety to begin did not prevent their shutting their eyes for a few seconds and obviously asking a blessing on their meal.
I remember that he had monstrous long arms, which hung almost to his knees, and a great hairy breast which showed through a rent in his seaman's jerkin. In that strange place, with the dripping spell of night about me, and the fire casting weird lights and shadows, he seemed like some devil of the hills awakened by magic from his ancient grave. But I saw it was time for me to be speaking up.
An what's the result? Why, this that thar hat! See here, boys;" and the venerable seaman's tone grew deeper, and more solemn, and more impressive; "see here, boys," he repeated; "for mor'n forty year hev I follered the seas, an traversed the briny deep; but, though I've hed my share of storms an accydints, though I've ben shipwrecked onst or twiste, yet never has it ben my lot to experience any loss of human life.
The Africans covered their heads to ward off ghosts, and snored on the damp floor of the canoe. Kettle took quinine and dozed in the Madeira chair. Mists closed round them, white with damp, earthy-smelling with malaria. Then gleams of morning stole over the trees and made the mists visible, and Kettle woke with a seaman's promptitude.
And Grace still stood in the doorway, waiting. The lantern bobbed up the slope. As it reached the tavern gateway, the minister saw that it was now carried by a tall, active man, who walked with a seaman's stride and roll. Captain Eben was close beside him, talking excitedly. They entered the yard. "Grace! Grace!" screamed Captain Eben. "Gracie, girl, look who's come! Look!"
"Had you particularized the duck, the comparison would have been exactly nautical," said the governess, smiling mournfully; "you show capabilities my love, to be one day a seaman's wife." Gertrude blushed a little; and, turning back her head to answer in the playful vein of her governess, her eye met the riveted look of Wilder, fastened on herself.
But Ralph's growing proficiency in a seaman's tasks was such, that on Rucker's advice, he was put before the mast altogether, after one of the sailors had broken several ribs by falling from aloft during a squall. The injured man, as soon as he was able, took Ralph's place in the cabin. As they approached the African coast, alternate fogs and calms delayed their progress somewhat.
"Has Her Majesty need of a man in her service who has seen, in his time, more blue water than hard ground; or is there no empty berth in so gallant a cruiser, for one who must do a seaman's duty, or starve?"
In three days I was quite well, and the doctor sending me a suit of seaman's clothes, I dressed and found my way up on deck. I looked about eagerly for Clem, but not seeing him, I became anxious to learn how he was. I could make none of the men understand me.
To the end of his life, this saving of the crew of the Dutton was the action in which he took most pride. The year that opened with this magnificent act of self-devotion saw Pellew, at its close, bearing a seaman's part in the most serious crisis that befell his country during the wars of the French Revolution.
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