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Updated: May 6, 2025
Now he was a tiny lad babbling in broadest dialect to his mother at the washing-tub; now he was a pit boy yelling at Susannah, the one-eyed pit pony; anon he was on the spar-deck of the Don, holding by the hand the father of the boy who now held his. Then there came a silence, and out of it the words, clean and quiet: "I'm the old man Nelson never forgave for doin of his dooty."
It was a dreamy, quiet afternoon, and the crew were listlessly lying 'around, when suddenly the Boatswain's whistle was heard, followed by the announcement, "D'ye hear there, fore and aft? Purser's auction on the spar-deck!" At the sound, the sailors sprang to their feet and mustered round the main-mast.
So perpendicular was the side of the berg that the stern davits drove right against it. The stern boat was crushed in, a portion of the taffrail and the upper part of the spar-deck bulwarks wrenched off. It seemed as if the whole stern of the ship was about to be carried away.
His nervous organization was confounded by the sight of the robust old sea-dogs on the forecastle and the general tumult of the spar-deck, and he mostly buried himself below in an atmosphere which long habit had made congenial. This young man never indulged in frivolous conversation; he only talked of the surgeon's prescriptions; his every word was a bolus.
Daylight at length returned, but showed no improvement in the weather; the wind blew as furiously as ever. Not for a moment had the brave admiral left his post. Just before noon a prodigious sea came rolling towards the ship, and, breaking over her bow, washed fore and aft, filling her from the hatches up to the spar-deck.
I looked round for Frank on the spar-deck, but he was nowhere to be seen. He must have been below, gazing out of a port-hole. The vessel was hailed from our poop, and came to anchor within a biscuit's toss of our batteries.
Michael Roburoff, standing on the spar-deck of the flying Aurania, suddenly saw a bright stream of light shoot down from the clouds, and flash hither and thither, till it hovered over the advancing French and Italian squadron. For the moment the combat ceased, so astounded were the combatants on both sides at this mysterious apparition.
The party then commenced the ascent to the spar-deck; which, from so great a depth in a frigate, is something like getting up to the top of Bunker Hill Monument from the basement.
Spike thought she was a frigate; but Mulford still inclined to the opinion that she was one of the new ships; perhaps a real corvette, or with a light spar-deck over her batteries. Two or three of the new vessels were known to be thus fitted, and this might be one.
Off Cape Horn, what before had been very uncomfortable became a serious hardship. Drenched through and through by the spray of the sea at night. I have sometimes slept standing on the spar-deck and shuddered as I slept for the want of sufficient sleep in my hammock. But this privilege was but a beggarly one, indeed.
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