We were barefoot
both and naked to the waist. Cautiously as a pair of cats, we worked
along the bowsprit to the foremast stay, at the foot of which the
foresail lay loose and ready for hoisting. With a fold of this I
covered myself and peered along the pitch-dark deck.
No shot had been fired. I could distinguish no sound of struggle, no
English voice in all the din. The ship seemed to be full only of
yellings, rushings to-and-fro of feet, wild hammerings upon timber,
solid and hollow: and these pell-mell noises made the darkness, if
not darker, at least more terribly confusing.
The cries abated a little; the noise of hammering increased, and at
the same time grew persistent and regular, almost methodical. I had
no sooner guessed the meaning of this--that the ruffians were
fastening down the hatches on their prisoners--than one of them, at
the far end of the ship, either fetched or found a lantern, lit it,
and stood it on the after-hatch. Its rays glinted on the white teeth
and eyeballs and dusky shining skins of a whole ring of Moors
gathered around the hatchway and nailing all secure.
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