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Updated: May 8, 2025
He left the cabin, swinging the satchel carelessly in his left hand. I thought to myself that I had better play anxiety; so, putting the orange on the table, I followed him into the 'tweendecks, halting at the door, as though in fear about the satchel's fate. Looking back, he saw me there. My presence confirmed him in his belief that he had got my treasure. He waved to me.
"Ques aco? What's the stir? What's the matter with you?" exclaimed Captain Barbassou, coming out of the 'tweendecks. "About time you did turn up, captain! Quick, quick, arm your men!" "Eh, what for? dash it all!" "Why, can't you see?" "See what?" "There, before you, the corsairs" Captain Barbassou stared, bewildered.
Two more started mouthing what seemed to Jukes fierce denunciations; the others stirred with grunts and growls. Jukes ordered the hands out of the 'tweendecks hurriedly. He left last himself, backing through the door, while the grunts rose to a loud murmur and hands were extended after him as after a malefactor.
I soon learned that all was well, for I heard the sailors laughing in their rough, swearing fashion as they piled a tarpaulin over the open hatch-mouth. A moment later, eight bells were struck. Some of the sailors having finished their watch, came down into the 'tweendecks to rest.
While she sat there, in the mess of gear which slid about as the ship rolled, I got a good big jug of water from the scuttle-butt in the 'tweendecks. I nipped on deck with it to ask the mate for some balsam, an excellent cure for cuts which most sailors carry to sea with them. There was mess enough on deck in all conscience.
It was a different affair from taking on board a cargo of heavy barrels and boxes. The living "bales" moved of their own accord, or were forced to move, if they did not, and there was nothing further required than to march them from the barracoon to the bank, then row them to the vessel, hurry them over the side, and huddle them down the hatch to the "'tweendecks" below.
If some of my readers have never been in a ship, let them try to imagine themselves descending from the upper deck where all the masts stand by a ladder fixed in a square opening known as a hatchway. About six feet down this ladder is the 'tweendecks, a long narrow room, with a ceiling so low that unless you bend, you bump your head against the beams.
My hammock had been slung between these cabins, a little forward of them. When I turned out, I saw that the rest of the 'tweendecks was piled with stores of all kinds, lashed down firmly to ringbolts. Right forward, in the darkness of the ship's bows, I saw other hammocks where the sailors slept.
At last the skylight came down with a clatter, leaving me free to go below again. As I went down the hatchway, into the 'tweendecks gloom, I saw a figure apparently at work among the ship's stores lashed to the deck there. I could not see who it was; it was too dark for that but the thing seemed strange to me.
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