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Grape-shot from the smaller guns or musketry from the marines would have destroyed numbers of the Malays struggling in the water, but looking upon them as out of the fight, Lieutenant Johnson left them to struggle, some to one bank, some to the other, and gave his orders merely to the men at the great guns. It was one from the port-side that had wrought this mischief.
"There's no doubt about it now," said the lieutenant grimly; and giving the orders as the prahus rapidly advanced, evidently with the intention of boarding, the two big guns on the port-side thundered out a reply, splashing the water all over one prahu, and going through the matting boarding-screen of the other; but otherwise doing no harm.
"You can't steer by compass; but you can do something if you are willing," suggested the pilot. "I am willing to do all I can; but I don't want my brother to shoot me, as much for his sake as my own. What shall I do?" asked Percy. "Crawl out of the pilot-house on the port-side, where they can't see you from the boat, and then keep watch of all the other steamers.
The majority of ships of this description have their turrets in the middle line, from which it results that only one half of their guns can be directed on an enemy, whether ahead or astern. The Inflexible has her turrets on each side the fore-turret on the port-side, the after-turret on the starboard.
Now the pursuer was losing some of the advantage of his superior speed; the Parrott was perceptibly higher; the Valkyr must needs mount in a more sweeping curve. None the less, Lanyard, peering down, saw still another tongue of flame spit out at him; and two bullet-holes appeared in the port-side wings of the biplane, one in the lower, one in the upper spread of canvas.
When the narrowest part of the channel is reached I shall put her helm hard aport, stop the engines, drop the anchors, open the sea connections, touch off the torpedoes, and leave the Merrimac a wreck, lying athwart the channel, which is not as broad as the Merrimac is long. There are ten 8-inch improvised torpedoes below the water-line, on the Merrimac’s port-side.
The great steamer crept cautiously forward into the fog. The second mate, with his hand on the whistle-line, blared out his warning note every half-minute. A dim shadow loomed up on the port-side, which presently took the form of a great steamer at anchor, and was left behind with a ringing bell and a booming whistle.
"The light! the light! there it is I see it clearly," exclaimed Jerry, whose bright eyes had been constantly on the watch for the looked-for beacon. "Where? where?" we all simultaneously cried out. "At a right angle with the boat's keel, as she now lies, on the port-side. There there, it is quite bright." All of us looked intently in the direction he indicated.
Abaft this on the starboard side is the general lounging room for third-class passengers, while on the port-side is their smoking room with a companion way leading to the third-class dining saloon below and to the third-class cabins on the main and lower decks.
On his way back to the port-side he saw a shop where a man sold shells and clubs from the wild islands, old heathen deities, old coined money, pictures from China and Japan, and all manner of things that sailors bring in their seachests. And here he had an idea. So he went in and offered the bottle for a hundred dollars.
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