Being So Deep And Heavy, She Wanted
The Buoyancy Which Should Have Carried Her Over The Seas, And She
Dropped
Heavily into them, the water washing over the decks; and
every now and then, when an unusually large sea met
Her fairly
upon the bows, she struck it with a sound as dead and heavy as
that with which a sledge-hammer falls upon the pile, and took
the whole of it in upon the forecastle, and rising, carried it
aft in the scuppers, washing the rigging off the pins, and carrying
along with it everything which was loose on deck. She had been
acting in this way all of our forenoon watch below; as we could
tell by the washing of the water over our heads, and the heavy
breaking of the seas against her bows, (with a sound as though
she were striking against a rock,) only the thickness of the
plank from our heads, as we lay in our berths, which are directly
against the bows. At eight bells, the watch was called, and we
came on deck, one hand going aft to take the wheel, and another
going to the galley to get the grub for dinner. I stood on the
forecastle, looking at the seas, which were rolling high, as far
as the eye could reach, their tops white with foam, and the body
of them of a deep indigo blue, reflecting the bright rays of the
sun. Our ship rose slowly over a few of the largest of them,
until one immense fellow came rolling on, threatening to cover
her, and which I was sailor enough to know, by "the feeling of
her" under my feet, she would not rise over. I sprang upon the
knight-heads, and seizing hold of the fore-stay with my hands,
drew myself upon it. My feet were just off the stanchion, when
she struck fairly into the middle of the sea, and it washed her
fore and aft, burying her in the water. As soon as she rose out
of it, I looked aft, and everything forward of the main-mast,
except the long-boat, which was griped and double-lashed down
to the ring-bolts, was swept off clear. The galley, the pig-sty,
the hen-coop, and a large sheep-pen which had been built upon the
forehatch, were all gone, in the twinkling of an eye - leaving the
deck as clean as a chin new-reaped - and not a stick left, to show
where they had stood. In the scuppers lay the galley, bottom up,
and a few boards floating about, the wreck of the sheep-pen, - and
half a dozen miserable sheep floating among them, wet through,
and not a little frightened at the sudden change that had come
upon them. As soon as the sea had washed by, all hands sprung
out of the forecastle to see what had become of the ship and in
a few moments the cook and old Bill crawled out from under the
galley, where they had been lying in the water, nearly smothered,
with the galley over them.
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