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Updated: June 13, 2025
And to make what was already bad enough still worse, it was impossible to remove the dead from among the living so long as the bad weather continued. When at length the gale moderated and the sea went down sufficiently to permit of sail being once more made, the hatches were lifted; and never to my dying day shall I forget the awful, poisonous stench that arose from the brigantine's hold.
About half the crew were in a liquorish stupor from which the trump itself could scarce have aroused them; the rest responded with savage oaths, swore that they would boil their suppers in the blood of the brigantine's men and give their corpses to the sea. They fell to work on the port battery in so ludicrous a manner that I was fain to laugh despite the gravity of the situation.
One of them, indeed, would have lost his life but for Simpson and Maxwell; for the boat was steered alongside stem-on, and the shock of her collision with the brigantine completely upset the balance of the man who was standing in the bows to fend her off, so that he fell overboard between the boat and the brigantine's side.
The principal deck had been sunken several feet, commencing at the aftermost bulk-head of the cabins of the subordinate officers, in a manner to give the necessary height, without interfering with the line of the brigantine's shear. The arrangement was consequently not to be seen, by an observer who was not admitted into the vessel itself.
The cat-boat pivoted on her heel; with a crack her sail flapped full and rigid; then, with the untempered might of the wind behind her, she shot like an arrow under the brigantine's bows, so close that the bowsprit of the latter first threatened to impale the sail, next, the bows plunging, crashed down a bare two feet behind the cat-boat's stern.
A few minutes later, from behind the belt of trees and scrub that extended along the whole southern shore of the islet, I beheld the end of the brigantine's flying-jib-boom slide into view, with the flying- jib, recently hauled down, napping loosely in the wind; then followed the rest of the spar, with the standing jib also hauled down, and a couple of men out on the boom, busily engaged in stowing it; then her fore-topmast staysail, beautifully cut and drawing like a whole team of horses, swept into view, followed by the fore part of a very handsome hull bearing the foremast, with the topsail still set, the topgallantsail and royal clewed up and in process of being furled, and the course hanging from the foreyard in graceful festoons.
Under certain circumstances, however, this sounding a ship's well is a nervous sort of business enough. 'Tis like feeling your own pulse in the last stage of a fever. At the Skyeman's suggestion, we now proceeded to throw round the brigantine's head on the other tack. For until daylight we desired to alter the vessel's position as little as possible, fearful of coming unawares upon reefs.
Once through the reef, she headed straight for Eden, and it looked as though the men in her contemplated landing on the beach at the foot of the slope upon which the bungalow was built; whereupon I thought it well to hoist the brigantine's ensign upon the flagstaff I had set up in front of the bungalow, as a hint to the intruders that the island was British territory, and that its inhabitants expected that territory to be respected.
Just as the darkness was closing down upon us, however, she took in her trysail and fore-topmast-staysail, and set a main-staysail instead; but they were so long about it that, when at length the change had been effected, the ship had drawn up to within about half a mile of the brigantine's lee quarter.
Meanwhile, our square canvas being aback, our antagonist swept rapidly ahead of us; seeing which, I filled upon the schooner and bore up under the brigantine's stern, raking with our port broadside as we crossed her stern, immediately hauling my wind and making a half-board across her stern again to regain my position upon her weather quarter.
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