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Updated: May 2, 2025
I was not conscious I opened my mouth. It is strange, the trick a thing like that can play with one's senses. I seemed to be falling for moments, an immeasurable distance. Actually, the whole thing occurred in about a second's space, and my feet just about cleared the yardarm when Newman's grip fastened upon my ankle.
Tadcaster was inclined to snivel: however, he subdued that weakness with a visible effort, and, in due course, returned to the charge. "How would you look," quavered he, "if there was to be a mutiny in this ship of yours, and I was to head it? "Well, I should look SHARP hang all the ringleaders at the yardarm, clap the rest under hatches, and steer for the nearest prison."
Their hands were tied behind them, and the beef was hung about their necks, "and the rest of the seamen cam one by one, and rubd them over the mouth with the raw beife; and in this posture they stood two howers." Other punishments were "shooting to death," and hanging at the yardarm.
"You poor devils, Dennis, Johnson and Mack! Do you know what this means? It spells hanging for every mother's son of you. Don't be a madman and fire that gun, Johnson. There's still a chance, even for you. Cut loose from the pirate you're serving and join the honest party. Mack, you're not a mutineer, are you? You don't want to be hanged at the yardarm, do you?"
"If we must go down, let us first get alongside the enemy, and then, yardarm to yardarm, let us both go down together, or carry her by boarding, and win a new ship for ourselves!" he exclaimed while talking the matter over with his officers. The idea was approved of by all of them, and they all expressed a hope that the opportunity might be allowed them of carrying it into execution.
My spirits fell again at this, for with all my inexperience I knew her to be a better sailer than the Black Moll. Her master, as Griggs remarked, "was no d d slouching lubber, and knew a yardarm from a rattan cane." Finally, about six bells of the watch, the stranger wore ship and bore down across our bows, hoisting English colours, at sight of which I could scarce forbear a cheer.
That night he got the boy to write a few lines to his wife at his dictation. They were very brief, very melancholy, very reverential. Here is the letter: "DEAR WIFE, We arrived here yesterday after a very rough passage. I hope you're well as it leaves me at present. The R arrived this morning's tide, and reports that Jack was knocked off the foretopsail yardarm, and they never see'd him again.
From every yardarm the white ensign flew, the flag which is to the sailor as the tattered colors were in days of old to a hard-pressed regiment. That it went hard with the battle-cruisers is apparent, but one ship cannot fight a dozen. They had fought a great fight, a fight to be proud of, a fight which will live longer than many a victory.
Now I tried to speak once more, but the Spaniard who had struck me, a ferocious-looking villain, drew his sword and swore that he would run me through if I dared to open my lips. So I thought it well to keep silent. 'This Englishman would grace a yardarm very well, he said.
The AEolus now fired a broadside into her antagonist, making fearful havoc, and killing Admiral D'Avila. The commanders-in-chief of both contending fleets had thus fallen at the very beginning of the battle. While the St. Augustine was engaged in deadly encounter, yardarm and yardarm, with the AEolus and the Tiger, Vice-admiral Alteras had, however, not carried out his part of the plan.
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