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For the reasons above stated, I had many spare hours to myself At times, I mounted aloft, and lounging in the slings of the topsail yard one of the many snug nooks in a ship's rigging I gazed broad off upon the blue boundless sea, and wondered what they were doing in that unknown land, toward which we were fated to be borne.
"Who would venture to do it?" exclaimed the Indian with a look of horror. "Besides, I told you, Senor, that no one has seen them near enough to observe their form; and sure I am that neither stones cast from slings, nor arrows shot from bows, nor bullets from guns, would pierce their hides." "I should like to encounter one of these monsters," I replied.
Out goes his flag and pendants, also his waist-cloths and top-armings, which is a long red cloth ... that goeth round about the shippe on the out-sides of all her upper works and fore and main-tops, as well for the countenance and grace of the shippe as to cover the men from being seen. He furls and slings his main-yard. In goes his sprit-sail.
The combatants were drawn up face to face, each side ranged in rank four deep. Those in the first row were armed with long spears; the second with clubs to defend the spearmen; the third row was composed of young men with slings; and the fourth consisted of women, who carried baskets of stones for the slingers, and clubs and spears with which to supply the warriors.
Some limped, others carried their arms in slings, others again had their heads bound up; but one could perceive, by their serious, determined faces, that they were animated by a high and cheerful courage, which placed them above physical suffering.
We were as far from the passage as we were from them. Our men were straining every nerve, and could make the boat go no faster. The doctor waited till I had reloaded the first musket. He again fired, still aiming high, as the mate told him to do. The next instant down came the yard and sail of the canoe. The bullet must have cut the slings right in two.
Such amusements as they could offer were too simple and old-fashioned for two distinguished persons who held the world in their slings and who were whirling it around their heads with all their might. The result was that their time was their own. They filled it at their pleasure.
Nevertheless they departed out of the land of Zarahemla, and took their swords, and their spears, and their bows, and their arrows, and their slings; and this they did that they might provide food for themselves while in the wilderness.
Yaspard was soon across the voe, and he soon had the Harrisons out of their beds. When they reached the beach Lowrie pulled out of a fish-chest two neatly made wooden swords, two slings, two bows, and a sheaf of arrows. As he handed some to his brother he said to Yaspard, "We made the swords last night, and most of the arrows. I think they are a great improvement on the last."
Their weapons were the boys' own armory, and Harry put in the best part of a day constructing neat racks in the cabin, which, when the various rifles and shotguns were hung in place, gave the little chamber a very businesslike appearance. The cabin was twenty-nine feet long, and the wings of the Golden Eagle were therefore a snug fit when suspended on slings from the cabin roof.
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