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"We must ease her, sir," I heard him say, "or I cannot answer for her weathering the gale." The Captain took a turn or two along the quarter-deck, his countenance showing the anxiety he felt. "It must be done," I heard him say. "Send Mr Block aft." He was the gunner. "We must heave some of our upper-deck guns overboard, Mr Block." The gunner seemed inclined to plead for them.
She was a big craft, of from nine hundred to a thousand tons, perhaps, and at a distance might very well have been mistaken for a man-o'-war. But she was evidently not that, for she showed only four guns of a side upon her upper-deck, and they were but small, apparently not more than 6-pounders.
The difficulty was to berth them; it was impossible to let them go below, their filthy habits making it necessary that they should remain on the upper-deck, where plenty of water could be used for washing down. They were accordingly made to lie close to each other, when sails were covered over them and screens were hung round, while the awning was stretched over the top of all.
The churl by nature would appear through some veneer of manner, if only to bring into relief the finer qualities of his fellows; lastly, and most surely, one other would jingle a merciful cap and bells, and mingle motley with the rest. The First Lieutenant had just come down from the upper-deck, and stood warming his hands by the fire.
I myself one day fell headlong from the upper-deck of the Ætna down the after-hold, when the ballast was out; and all who saw me fall cried out I was killed: but I received not the least injury. And in the same ship a man fell from the mast-head on the deck without being hurt.
Thus the "Weymouth" was able to get within gunshot of them before her character was discovered. Quickly bracing up her yards, she poured a broadside into her two opponents, which were close together. They were found to be two large galleys, which carried some twenty guns on the upper-deck, and several on the quarter-deck, while between-decks were small ports, out of which their oars projected.
"We Englishmen have been taught to help our enemies in distress, mounseer," observed Job Truefitt, as, without waiting a moment to ask leave, he lifted the wounded lad on his shoulders. "There's no time for palavering. Come along, sirs." The midshipmen sprang on, helping Job to support his burden, and they soon reached the upper-deck, when the scene of horror and confusion was indescribable!
It concerned the photograph of a mutual lady acquaintance, and has no place in this narrative. Thorogood moved to the rail and looked down at the familiar forecastle and teeming upper-deck, thirty feet below. Seen thus from above, the grey, sloping shields of the turrets, each with its great twin guns, looked like gigantic mythical tortoises with two heads and disproportionately long necks.
"We're only the port and starboard upper-deck stringers; and if you persist in heaving and hiking like this, we shall be reluctantly compelled to take steps." Now the stringers of the ship are long iron girders, so to speak, that run lengthways from stern to bow. Stringers always consider themselves most important, because they are so long. "You will take steps will you?"
The Camperdown has only upper-deck cabins, and I shall have fresh air. I am not as well as I was at Caledon, so I am all the more anxious to have a voyage likely to do me good instead of harm. I got my cart and Choslullah photographed after all. The road is cut on the side of Lion Mountain, and overhangs the sea at a great height.
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