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- 5665
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T20:48:05.591Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 5617
- text
- the Serapis, where several guns were seen surrounded by their buff
crews as by fauns and satyrs.
At the beginning of the fray, before the ships interlocked, in the
intervals of smoke which swept over the ships as mist over
mountain-tops, affording open rents here and there—the gun-deck of the
Serapis, at certain points, showed, congealed for the instant in all
attitudes of dauntlessness, a gallery of marble statues—fighting
gladiators.
Stooping low and intent, with one braced leg thrust behind, and one arm
thrust forward, curling round towards the muzzle of the gun, there was
seen the _loader_, performing his allotted part; on the other side of
the carriage, in the same stooping posture, but with both hands holding
his long black pole, pike-wise, ready for instant use—stood the eager
_rammer and sponger_; while at the breech, crouched the wary _captain
of the gun_, his keen eye, like the watching leopard’s, burning along
the range; and behind all, tall and erect, the Egyptian symbol of
death, stood the _matchman_, immovable for the moment, his long-handled
match reversed. Up to their two long death-dealing batteries, the
trained men of the Serapis stood and toiled in mechanical magic of
discipline. They tended those rows of guns, as Lowell girls the rows of
looms in a cotton factory. The Parcae were not more methodical; Atropos
not more fatal; the automaton chess-player not more irresponsible.
“Look, lad; I want a grenade, now, thrown down their main hatchway. I
saw long piles of cartridges there. The powder monkeys have brought
them up faster than they can be used. Take a bucket of combustibles,
and let’s hear from you presently.”
These words were spoken by Paul to Israel. Israel did as ordered. In a
few minutes, bucket in hand, begrimed with powder, sixty feet in air,
he hung like Apollyon from the extreme tip of the yard over the fated
abyss of the hatchway. As he looked down between the eddies of smoke
into that slaughterous pit, it was like looking from the verge of a
cataract down into the yeasty pool at its base. Watching, his chance,
he dropped one grenade with such faultless precision, that, striking
its mark, an explosion rent the Serapis like a volcano. The long row of
heaped cartridges was ignited. The fire ran horizontally, like an
express on a railway. More than twenty men were instantly killed:
nearly forty wounded. This blow restored the chances of battle, before
in favor of the Serapis.
But the drooping spirits of the English were suddenly revived, by an
event which crowned the scene by an act on the part of one of the
consorts of the Richard, the incredible atrocity of which has induced
all humane minds to impute it rather to some incomprehensible mistake
than to the malignant madness of the perpetrator.
- title
- Chunk 7