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And yesterday comes Captain Crew, of one of the fire-ships, and told me that the officers of the Ordnance would deliver his gunner's materials, but not compound them, but that we must do it; whereupon I was forced to write to them about it: and one that like a great many come to me this morning. By and by comes Mr. Willson, and, by direction of his, a man of Mr.
"O, very good, sir!" screamed Captain Boltrope, rubbing his hands and absolutely capering about the deck with rage. "O d n you! Of course you shall! O ho! the gunner's daughter! O, h ll! this is too much! Boatswain's mate!" Before I well knew where I was, I was seized, borne to an eight-pounder, tied upon it and flogged!
I bore my punishment unflinchingly, for, really I knew I deserved it; but, although the gunner's mate did not spare his arm and the cuts he gave me with his cane stung sharply, sharper than the pain I felt physically was the consciousness that I had lost my good character!
"But you are the general," replied Boisberthelot. The old man looked at the gunner. "Come forward," he said. The gunner approached. The old man turned toward the Count de Boisberthelot, took off the cross of Saint-Louis from the captain's coat and fastened it on the gunner's jacket. "Hurrah!" cried the sailors. The mariners presented arms.
I take my orders from the Captain." "You'll take this order from me, or, by God, you'll...." "Wait!" Blood bade him, interrupting, and he set a restraining hand upon the gunner's arm. "There is, I think, a better way." He looked over his shoulder, aft, at the advancing ships, the foremost of which was now a bare quarter of a mile away.
Now, there can be little doubt, that their being so much among the guns is the very thing that makes a gunner's gang so cross and quarrelsome. Indeed, this was once proved to the satisfaction of our whole company of main-top-men. A fine top-mate of ours, a most merry and companionable fellow, chanced to be promoted to a quarter-gunner's berth.
Then a gunner serving the nearest piece suddenly dropped his swab and seized a carbine, for out of the whirling confusion before them a single rider was seen galloping furiously towards the gun. The red-capped young officer rode forward and knocked up the gunner's weapon with his sword.
They tell you that the best part of the sound has escaped through the port-hole, otherwise there would be no standing it, and our gunner's mate whispers in your ears, `It's all werry well, but they bu'sts out bleeding from the chest and ears after the fourth discharge, and has to be taken below. You have had enough of it too, and are glad that they don't ask you to witness another shot fired."
In the vestibule of the Magazine, against the panelling, were several pegs for slippers, and, before penetrating further than that vestibule, every man of the gunner's gang silently removed his shoes, for fear that the nails in their heels might possibly create a spark, by striking against the coppered floor within.
The sailor got up unwillingly, and in obedience to the gunner's orders they began now, in place of searching for traces of the smugglers, to look for their missing officer, scattering along, as fate had it, farther and farther from the spot where he had disappeared, no one seeing a face watching them intently through the thin wiry strands of a tuft of grass growing close up under the cliff.
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