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- 5924
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T20:48:05.591Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 5847
- text
- vessels separated more, an officer of the strange ship spying a man on
the boom, and taking him for one of his own men, demanded what he did
there.
“Clearing the signal halyards, sir,” replied Israel, fumbling with the
cord which happened to be dangling near by.
“Well, bear a hand and come in, or you will have a bow-chaser at you
soon,” referring to the bow guns of the Ariel.
“Aye, aye, sir,” said Israel, and in a moment he sprang to the deck,
and soon found himself mixed in among some two hundred English sailors
of a large letter of marque. At once he perceived that the story of
half the crew being killed was a mere hoax, played off for the sake of
making an escape. Orders were continually being given to pull on this
and that rope, as the ship crowded all sail in flight. To these orders
Israel, with the rest, promptly responded, pulling at the rigging
stoutly as the best of them; though Heaven knows his heart sunk deeper
and deeper at every pull which thus helped once again to widen the gulf
between him and home.
In intervals he considered with himself what to do. Favored by the
obscurity of the night and the number of the crew, and wearing much the
same dress as theirs, it was very easy to pass himself off for one of
them till morning. But daylight would be sure to expose him, unless
some cunning, plan could be hit upon. If discovered for what he was,
nothing short of a prison awaited him upon the ship’s arrival in port.
It was a desperate case, only as desperate a remedy could serve. One
thing was sure, he could not hide. Some audacious parade of himself
promised the only hope. Marking that the sailors, not being of the
regular navy, wore no uniform, and perceiving that his jacket was the
only garment on him which bore any distinguishing badge, our adventurer
took it off, and privily dropped it overboard, remaining now in his
dark blue woollen shirt and blue cloth waistcoat.
What the more inspirited Israel to the added step now contemplated, was
the circumstance that the ship was not a Frenchman’s or other
foreigner, but her crew, though enemies, spoke the same language that
he did.
So very quietly, at last, he goes aloft into the maintop, and sitting
down on an old sail there, beside some eight or ten topmen, in an
off-handed way asks one for tobacco.
“Give us a quid, lad,” as he settled himself in his seat.
“Halloo,” said the strange sailor, “who be you? Get out of the top! The
fore and mizzentop men won’t let us go into their tops, and blame me if
we’ll let any of their gangs come here. So, away ye go.”
“You’re blind, or crazy, old boy,” rejoined Israel. “I’m a topmate;
ain’t I, lads?” appealing to the rest.
“There’s only ten maintopmen belonging to our watch; if you are one,
then there’ll be eleven,” said a second sailor. “Get out of the top!”
“This is too bad, maties,” cried Israel, “to serve an old topmate this
way. Come, come, you are foolish. Give us a quid.” And, once more, with
the utmost sociability, he addressed the sailor next to him.
“Look ye,” returned the other, “if you don’t make away with yourself,
you skulking spy from the mizzen, we’ll drop you to deck like a
jewel-block.”
Seeing the party thus resolute, Israel, with some affected banter,
descended.
The reason why he had tried the scheme—and, spite of the foregoing
failure, meant to repeat it—was this: As customary in armed ships, the
men were in companies allotted to particular places and functions.
Therefore, to escape final detection, Israel must some way get himself
recognized as belonging to some one of those bands; otherwise, as an
isolated nondescript, discovery ere long would be certain, especially
upon the next general muster. To be sure, the hope in question was a
forlorn sort of hope, but it was his sole one, and must therefore be
tried.
- title
- Chunk 2