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Sometimes he would be seated in the gallery, tapping his foot on the floor, and sometimes pacing the garden walks with his hands opening and shutting. And one night I awoke with a start, and lay for a while listening until I heard something like a splash, and the scraping of the bottom-boards of a boat.
Moreover, the sand was soft and easy to dig, and as we had no proper tools, this was a great consideration. Presently, using the bottom-boards and the oars and the hatchet, we had a place large and deep enough to hold the boy, and into this we placed him. We made no prayer over him; but stood about the grave for a little space, in silence.
They slept thrown across the thwarts, curled on bottom-boards, in the careless attitudes of death. The head of the old skipper, leaning back in the stern of the long-boat, had fallen on his breast, and he looked as though he would never wake.
Both boats were easily secured, and found to be undamaged; and several of the oars and loose bottom-boards were also recovered, being found floating at no great distance from the boats.
It is true, there were a few scraps of putrid fish in the boat, and Tom had found a fishing-line under the bottom-boards forward, so that, having a line and the wherewithal to bait it, they might possibly succeed in catching a few fish. But then it would obviously not do to rely on such a mere chance as that.
Her boats, with their white enamel inside and out, their black gunwales with the narrow golden ribbon running round inside, the well-scrubbed masts, oars, thwarts, bottom-boards, and gratings, the brass lettered backboards, and cushioned sternsheets, were the pride of her midshipmen and the envy of nearly all the other young gentlemen in the squadron.
The strong tail lashed out, hurling oars and balers overboard, the long teeth snapped at the bottom-boards and thwarts. Now and again it would leap high up in the air, only to fall back again, writhing furiously, hissing and spitting and frothing at the mouth, its red eyes glaring from one to another of the terrified captors, as if saying: "Come on just a little nearer!"
Sometimes he would be seated in the gallery, tapping his foot on the floor, and sometimes pacing the garden walks with his hands opening and shutting. And one night I awoke with a start, and lay for a while listening until I heard something like a splash, and the scraping of the bottom-boards of a boat.
By the time that I had finished my supper night had fallen, the stars were shining with the brilliance that they only display in the tropics, and I was beginning to feel the need of sleep; I therefore took a final look round, satisfied myself that all was right and that nothing was in sight, and then, heartily commending myself to the care of my Maker, I stretched myself out on the bottom-boards, and was almost instantly asleep.
Then there is the queen-turbot, shaded from dark blue to palest turquoise, reminding one of Lord's Cricket Ground at an Eton and Harrow match; besides pink fish, scarlet fish, and orange fish, which when captured make the bottom-boards of the boat look like a Futurist landscape, not to speak of horrible, spotted, eel-like creatures whose bite is venomous.
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