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Updated: May 4, 2025
He led the doctor back to the rear, where the guard, sun-blackened, haggard fellows, with their clothes hanging in rags from the thorns, were on the watch, and this being out of earshot of the sick and wounded, who were all ranged side by side beneath a couple of shady spreading trees, he gave the order for the men to fall in, when, with the precision that they would have shown upon a parade ground, the soldiers fell in, making one line; the sailors another in the rear.
As Abel Keeling lay on the galleon's deck, held from rolling down it only by his own weight and the sun-blackened hand that lay outstretched upon the planks, his gaze wandered, but ever returned to the bell that hung, jammed with the dangerous heel-over of the vessel, in the small ornamental belfry immediately abaft the mainmast.
It was a tall cowman just down from the Peaks who ordered the round, and so all-embracing was his good humor that he bid every one in the room drink with him, even a sheepman. Broad-faced and huge, with four months' growth of hair and a thirst of the same duration, he stood at the end of the bar, smiling radiantly, one sun-blackened hand toying with the empty glass.
As he looked at their grotesque figures he struck his brow with his clenched fist to be sure that he was awake. The deck seemed to be much dirtier than when he had left it, and there were strange, sun-blackened faces turned upon him from every side. Not one of them did he know save only Joshua Hird. Had the ship been captured in his absence? Were these Sharkey's men who were around him?
He hated him for this and in a checked flannel shirt with sleeves cut off at the elbows, grey bearded, with a sunken, sun-blackened face he cursed in his heart the other's youth and assurance, his clear eyes and his untroubled bearing. That fellow had got in a long way before him! He did not look like a man who would be willing to give anything for assistance.
The burly Lucas Meyer, smart young Smuts fresh from the siege of Ookiep, Beyers from the north, Kemp the dashing cavalry leader, Muller the hero of many fights all these with many others of their sun-blackened, gaunt, hard-featured comrades were grouped within the great tent of Vereeniging. The discussions were heated and prolonged.
They were rough-looking desperadoes, with sun-blackened faces, and an immensity of beard; their wide, short trousers were confined about the waist by belts, often clasped with a rough plate of gold, and sustaining always a long knife, and, in some instances, a sword.
"Cursed if we do!" growled a deep voice from above, and glancing upwards the officers in the cabin were aware of a line of fierce, bearded, sun-blackened faces looking down at them through the open skylight. "Well, what would you have?" asked Sharkey. "Put it in words, man, and let us have an end of it."
He emitted a raucous shout of triumph: "I got her! It's her, all right! I claim " As he reached out his enormous sun-blackened arm there was a thud that seemed to shake the ground. Instantly enraged, the man's little red-rimmed eyes jerked quietly to the dealer of that shocking blow.
Neither the wild whirling of the sun-blackened arms nor the bristly stubble of a six weeks' growth of beard could prevent him from instantly recognizing the face of his friend. "Tom! Tom!" he hailed. "Hullo! hullo, old man! Come down!" Even as he cried out he realized that he could neither be heard nor recognized at so great a distance.
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