Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 15, 2025
No shot was heard from the Spaniard's upper-deck. Amyas leaped into the mizzen rigging and looked through the smoke. Dead men he could descry through the blinding veil, rolled in heaps, laid flat; dead men and dying; but no man upon his feet.
Then the gunner took his keys from their appointed place outside the door of the captain's cabin and went below to open the magazines in the flat appropriated to their combustible contents, in company with a working party to attend to the ammunition hoists; while the marine artillerymen and crews of the main-deck battery and upper-deck machine- guns hurried to their stations under charge of "Gunnery Jack," the lieutenant whose special function was to see to our little barkers.
The upper-deck seams let in the rain, and when once the lower-decks were wet it was very difficult to dry them. It was impossible to close the gun-deck ports so as to make them watertight, for the water would find cracks to come in at, even though the edges of the lids were caulked with oakum, and the orifices further barred by deadlights or wooden shutters.
The following are the articles by which a slaver can be condemned if found on board: A slave-deck, or planks ready for a deck; slave irons and slave coppers, which are a large cooking apparatus for the slaves and crew, standing generally amidships on the upper-deck; an extra quantity of farina, rice, water, or other provisions, which cannot be accounted for.
A number of dark objects, which on inspection I found to be hams, were stowed snugly away in battens under the ceiling or upper-deck; a cask half full of flour stood in a corner; near it lay a large coarse sack in which was a quantity of biscuit, a piece of which I bit and found it as hard as flint and tasteless, but not in the least degree mouldy.
We immediately luffed and returned the compliment, giving him the whole of our port broadside, main-deck and upper-deck guns; and when the smoke blew away we had the satisfaction of seeing that we had shot away his jib-booms, thus depriving him of a considerable amount of head-sail at a most critical moment.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking