The Green Hand: Adventures of a Naval LieutenantCupples, George
General
The Green Hand: Adventures of a Naval Lieutenant
Cupples, George
Sea stories; Seafaring life -- Juvenile fiction; Voyages and travels -- Juvenile fiction
"The captain went up to the poop, and I stood on the foremost carronade
near the main rigging, where I could just see her now and then white
against the blue haze between the hollows of the waves, as the Indiaman
lifted. 'There she is!' said I, thinking it was Westwood that stopped
behind me; it was the judge, however, and as soon as I got down he
stepped up, holding on with one hand to a back-stay. The ship was rising
after a pitch, every bulkhead and timber in her creaking, when all of a
sudden I felt by my feet what all sailors feel the same way--she was
coming up in the wind too fast to mount with the next wave, and a
regular _comber_ it was going to be. I looked to the wheel--there was
big Harry himself with a grin on his face, and his eye on Sir Charles,
as he coolly gave her half a weather-spoke more, and then whirled it
back again to meet her. 'For heaven's sake, look out, sir!' exclaimed I.
'Why, so I do,' said the judge, rather good-naturedly. 'Zounds!
what's----' You felt the whole ship stop creaking for a moment, as she
hung with the last wave--'Hold on!' shouted a mid--she gave a dull
quiver from stem to stern, and I fairly pulled the judge close into the
bulwark, just as smash, like thunder, came a tremendous green sea over
us, three in one, washing down into the lee scuppers. The old gentleman
staggered up, dripping like a poodle, and unable to see--one heard the
water trickling through the skylights, and stepping away downstairs like
a fellow with iron heels; while there was the sailor at the wheel
grinding down his spokes in right earnest, looking aloft at the shaking
fore-topsail, and the Indiaman seemingly doubtful whether to fall off or
broach-to. Up she rose again, however, and drove round with her Turkhead
in the air, then dip through the spray as gallantly as ever.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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