United States or Greece ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Then the Privateer, another fast one, but going sluggishly now because of a stove-in seine-boat wallowing astern. Then the North Wind, with her decks swept clear of everything but her house and hatches. Seine-boat, seine and dory were gone. After her was a big, powerful vessel, the Ave Maria, with the most erratic skipper of all. This man never appeared but the gossip broke out.
"I climbed upon this carcass of a ship by the lowest side; then, having reached the deck, I went below. The daylight, which entered by the stove-in hatches and the cracks in the sides, showed me dimly long dark cavities full of demolished woodwork. They contained nothing but sand, which served as foot-soil in this cavern of planks. "I began to take some notes about the condition of the ship.
But when he puts out to sea now he does not need to use a stove-in coble: he is captain of the smart lifeboat; and his proudest possession is a photograph which shows his noble figure standing at the bow. On bleak mornings you might see the movements of Peggy's stooping figure among the glistening brown weeds that draped the low rocks; and somehow you always noticed her most on bleak mornings.
When last sighted she was fast to the same bull which had destroyed the first mate's boat; it was then nearly dark, and the whale, which was of an enormous size, although he had three irons in his body and was towing the whole length of line from the stove-in boat as well as that of the second mate, was racing through the water as fresh as when he had first been struck, three hours previously.
For quite early the cutter began to sail in pretty close to the shore, the carpenter busy the while in getting a fresh plank in the bottom of the stove-in boat, having it ready by the time the lieutenant mustered his men and told them off into the boats, leaving the boatswain in command of the cutter and leading the expedition himself.
Word Of The Day