If after what's happened, this here craft goes to
sea with us, we are no men; and that's the way to say it.
Speak the
word, my livelies, and I'll pilot her in. I've been to Tahiti before
and I can do it." Whereupon, he sat down amid a universal pounding of
chest-lids, and cymbaling of tin pans; the few invalids, who, as yet,
had not been actively engaged with the rest, now taking part in the
applause, creaking their bunk-boards and swinging their hammocks.
Cries also were heard, of "Handspikes and a shindy!" "Out
stun-sails!" "Hurrah!"
Several now ran on deck, and, for the moment, I thought it was all
over with us; but we finally succeeded in restoring some degree of
quiet.
At last, by way of diverting their thoughts, I proposed that a "Round
Robin" should be prepared and sent ashore to the consul by Baltimore,
the cook. The idea took mightily, and I was told to set about it at
once. On turning to the doctor for the requisite materials, he told
me he had none; there was not a fly-leaf, even in any of his books.
So, after great search, a damp, musty volume, entitled "A History of
the most Atrocious and Bloody Piracies," was produced, and its two
remaining blank leaves being torn out, were by help of a little pitch
lengthened into one sheet. For ink, some of the soot over the lamp
was then mixed with water, by a fellow of a literary turn; and an
immense quill, plucked from a distended albatross' wing, which,
nailed against the bowsprit bitts, had long formed an ornament of the
forecastle, supplied a pen.
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