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He is also said to have made provision for ornament and delight, carrying with him a band of musicians, together with rich furniture and much silverplate, all the vessels for his table, and many of those belonging to the cook-room, being of that metal. This magnificence is stated by his biographers, to have been intended as a display for the honour of his country among foreign nations.
This done, I returned to the cook-room, and with a butcher's axe that hung against the bulkhead I knocked away one of the boards that confined the coal, split it into small pieces, and in a short time had kindled a good fire. One does not need the experience of being cast away upon an iceberg to understand the comfort of a fire.
Well, I clambered on to the forecastle deck and returned to the cook-room with my piece of ice, struck as I went along by the sudden comfortable quality of life the gushing of the black smoke out of the chimney put into the ship, and how, indeed, it seemed to soften as if by magic the savage wildness and haggard austerity and gale-swept loneliness of the white rocks and peaks.
After this I went on board. The first sight I met with was two men drowned in the cook-room, or forecastle of the ship, with their arms fast about one another.
As soon as they came within call of the ship, he made Robinson hail them, and tell them he had brought off the men and the boat, but that it was a long time before they had found them, and the like; holding them in a chat, till they came to the ship's side; when the captain and the mate, entering first with their arms, immediately knocked down the second mate and carpenter with the but end of their muskets; being very faithfully seconded by their men, they seemed all the rest that were upon the main and quarter decks, and began to fasten the hatches to keep them down who were below; when the other boat and their men, entering at the fore chains, secured the forecastle of the ship, and the skuttle which went down into the cook-room, making three men they found there prisoners.
The man named "Bill" at this moment returned to the cook-room, and reported all well above. My offer was repeated to him, but he shook his head. "This is the Horn, mates," said he. "There's a deal o' water 'tween this and the Thames. How do she sail? no man knows." "I want none but willing men," said I. "Americans make as good sailors as the English. What an English seaman can face any of you can.
But it was all in vain; and had I not come on board, and their own commander and officers with me, and with good words, and some threats also of giving them no more, I believe they would have broken into the cook-room by force, and torn the meat out of the furnace for words are indeed of very small force to a hungry belly; however, we pacified them, and fed them gradually and cautiously at first, and the next time gave them more, and at last filled their bellies, and the men did well enough.
Peg Barney that cleared out the Blue Lights' Jubilee meeting wid the cook-room mop last year? 'Thin I knew ut was a draf of the ould rig'mint, an' I was conshumed wid sorrow for the bhoy that was in charge. We was harrd scrapin's at any time. Did I iver tell you how Horker Kelley went into clink nakid as Phoebus Apollonius, wid the shirts av the Corp'ril an' file undher his arrum?
I have no doubt the disorder my mind was in helped to persuade him that I had not the full possession of my senses. He ran his eye over my figure and then round the cook-room, and said, "I am impatient to learn your story, sir." "Why, sir," said I, "my story is summed up in what I have already told you."
My pipe being emptied, I threw some more coals into the furnace, and putting a candle in the lanthorn went aft to take another view of the little cabins, in one of which I resolved to sleep, for though the cook-room would have served me best whilst the fire burned, I reckoned upon it making a colder habitation when the furnace was black than those small compartments in the stern.
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