Below, between decks, for most of the time they were worse off. Not the faintest gleam of light came in through the ports--only smoke, pouring back into the ship with every discharge of the guns, thick and suffocating, blotting out everything from sight and filling every corner of the ship with hot sulphurous fumes. Except close underneath the horn battle-lanterns, that swung overhead above the guns and threw a weak glimmer on the white glistening shoulders of the seamen--as they fought their pieces, stripped to the buff and dripping with sweat, naked except for their breeches, tugging and swaying with bent backs at the training tackle, barefooted, for the decks, though sanded down, soon got slippery--all was impenetrable darkness, ink black. The din below was fearful, incessant, deafening, with the reverberating crashes from the firing; the continuous trundling roll and thumping to and fro of the heavy gun-carriages, flung about by main force backwards and forwards as the guns were run in and out; the rattle and clatter of gear; the hoarse shoutings of orders. Now and again a sudden terrific crash, mingled with the harsh rending noise of splintering timber, would shake the ship's frame from end to end and overpower every other sound for the moment, as an enemy's broadside beat furiously against the stout oak planking of the ship's sides, followed by yells of agony from somewhere in the dark within the ship, and the gruff abrupt 'Close up there! Close up!' from the captains of the guns, signifying that some poor fellows had gone down. [Illustration: FIGHTING THE GUNS ON THE MAIN DECK. 1782. After Rowlandson. [This would seem to have been drawn in 1782, when Rowlandson paid his flying visit to see the remains of the _Royal George_, and was probably worked up from a sketch on board one of the obsolete guardships in harbour with certain fancy touches of the artist's own.]]