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"The lower hold and the orlop deck were such a terror that no man would venture down into them. * Our water was good could we have had enough of it: the bread was superlatively bad. I do not recollect seeing any which was not full of living vermin, but eat it, worms and all, we must, or starve. * A secret, prejudicial to a prisoner, revealed to the guard, was death.
And: "By the brand upon my shoulder, by the gall of clinging steel, By the welts the whips have left me, by the scars that never heal . . . " And: "Battered chain-gangs of the orlop, grizzled draughts of years gone by . . . " And I caught my great, radiant vision of Mr.
In truth, it must be confessed that if the secretary had not been secured to his seat with gaskets, he would, regardless of precedents, have taken to his heels and left the ceremony to those who had a liking for it. And as it was, his fears continued to increase with the approach of the ceremony. A double file of men, in their neatest attire, now formed in order from the orlop to the fore-chains.
That is to say, I was coffined and shrouded in a longitudinal canvas bag, hung up to the orlop deck by two cleats, one at each end, in a very graceful curve, very useful in forming that elegant bend in the back so much coveted by the exhibitors in Regent Street. I had taken a rather sentimental leave of Jemima, who had somehow or another persuaded me to exchange love-tokens with her.
Meanwhile Riou, in spite of a ship without a rudder, and with the water in her up to the orlop deck, succeeded, as the boatswain's letter shows, after a voyage of nine weeks, in bringing his command to the Cape. A letter from Capetown, written on March 1, 1790, tells us she arrived there "eight days ago in a situation not to be credited without ocular proofs.
Something extraordinary was perturbing the crew. They, too, were all on deck as though some powerful attraction had drawn them from the orlop, from the depths of the hold, from the metallic corridors of the engine rooms.
"Very well, sir," I replied. And following my new acquaintance, I first saw to the hoisting in of my traps, and then with them descended to the place which was to be my home for so many months to come. This was a tolerably roomy but very indifferently lighted cabin on the lower or orlop deck, access to which was gained by the descent of a very steep ladder.
"Suppose he should take it into his head to duck you, though yes, and drown you what then?" "I should like to see him try it; I'd give him such a pair of black eyes that he wouldn't dare to show his face in the admiral's cabin again for a long while, let alone down in the orlop there, where he lives, and hereabouts on the upper decks where he sneaks so much.
The ball took a slanting direction through the main and orlop decks, and came out just below the water-line, making instantly a leak that we could not affect to despise. "Droll," said Reud, shaking the dust from his person. "Very," said his well-dined echoes around him. If this be jesting, thought I, the cream of the joke is to come yet. "Beat to quarters, Mr Rattlin."
Sir Wycherly guv' me a glass of his black-strap, as I ran through the dining-room, and told me to drink 'Confusion to the Pretender, which I did, with hearty good-will; but his liquor will no more lay alongside of the ale they've down on the orlop, than a Frenchman will compare with an Englishman.
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