United States or Laos ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
They, the emigrants, seemed to be a very mixed lot, ranging from clod-hopping, agricultural labourers, whose intelligence seemed insufficient to enable them to appreciate the wonder of a flying-fish or the beauty of a golden, crimson, and purple sunset, to individuals of so refined and intellectual an appearance and so polished a behaviour, that the fact of their being 'tween-deck passengers seemed nothing short of a grotesque incongruity.
There were some scores of steerage and 'tween-deck passengers, deeper yet in the bowels of the ship, but hidden out of sight by the closed hatches. I know not why it should have been, but I was the only midshipman on the poop, though the ship carried twelve of us, six to a watch. The other five were doubtless loafing about under cover somewhere.
This was remarkable enough for him to notice while he was flung from port to starboard and back again, and clawing desperately the smooth sides of the bunker in the endeavour to stop himself. The door into the 'tween-deck not fitting quite true, he saw a thread of dim light at the bottom.
He carried some of the rails in the 'tween-deck for steadying ballast, and I suppose it prevented them looking farther. And now they'll lose their salvage, and perhaps have to pay it on their own schooner if anything comes along and picks them up. That's the craft that'll get the salvage." "Not likely," said the pilot; "not in this fog, and the wind and sea rising.
Before he recovered he had been ironed to a stanchion in the 'tween-deck, and entered in the captain's official log for threatening life. And by this time the dunnage had been searched, a few sheath-knives tossed overboard, and the remaining ten men were moodily heaving in the chain.
Angel Todd, first mate and quartermaster, filled a black pipe before answering. Then, between the first and second deep puffs, he said: "Growlin' dammum." "At the work?" "Yep, and the grub. And they say the 'tween-deck and forecastle smells o' bedbugs and bilge-water, and they want their grog. 'An ungodly witness scorneth judgment: and the mouth of the wicked devoureth iniquity." Mr.
"We have in the 'tween-deck," said the doctor, as he turned, "about twice as many pounds of this stuff as they used to pack the carboys with; and, like the nitro-glycerine, is the more easily exploded from the impurities and free acids. I washed this for safe handling. Boston, we are adrift on a floating bomb that would pulverize the rock of Gibraltar!"
"They stowed their spare canvas in the 'tween-deck on top of the cargo," said Boston; "and the carboys " "And the carboys burst from the heat and ruined the sails," broke in the doctor. "But another question is, what became of that acid?" "If it's not in the 'tween-deck yet, it must be in the hold leaked through the hatches." "I hope it hasn't reached the iron in the hull, Boston, my boy.
At the same time their grumbling and sighing and muttering worried him greatly, but by-and-by it occurred to him that there were six globe lamps hung in the 'tween-deck, and that there could be no harm in depriving the coolies of one of them. The Nan-Shan had an athwartship coal-bunker, which, being at times used as cargo space, communicated by an iron door with the fore 'tween-deck.
"Lime soap is formed, which rises, and the water beneath is in time all taken up by the lime." "But what of it?" interrupted the other. "Wait. I see that this hold and the 'tween-deck are lined with wood. Is that customary in iron ships?" "Not now. It used to be a notion that an iron skin damaged the cargo; so the first iron ships were ceiled with wood."
Word Of The Day