Chapter 75 - Page 2

of hail-stones in Labrador. It was a
stormy time, my hearties! The blasted Turks pitched into the old
Asia's hull a whole quarry of marble shot, each ball one hundred
and fifty pounds. They knocked three port-holes into one. But we
gave them better than they sent. 'Up and at them, my bull-dog!'
said I, patting my gun on the breech; 'tear open hatchways in
their Moslem sides! White-Jacket, my lad, you ought to have been
there. The bay was covered with masts and yards, as I have seen a
raft of snags in the Arkansas River. Showers of burned rice and
olives from the exploding foe fell upon us like manna in the
wilderness. '_Allah! Allah! Mohammed! Mohammed!_' split the air;
some cried it out from the Turkish port-holes; others shrieked it
forth from the drowning waters, their top-knots floating on their
shaven skulls, like black snakes on half-tide rocks. By those
top-knots they believed that their Prophet would drag them up to
Paradise, but they sank fifty fathoms, my hearties, to the bottom
of the bay. 'Ain't the bloody 'Hometons going to strike yet?'
cried my first loader, a Guernsey man, thrusting his neck out of
the port-hole, and looking at the Turkish line-of-battle-ship
near by. That instant his head blew by me like a bursting Paixhan
shot, and the flag of Neb Knowles himself was hauled down for
ever. We dragged his hull to one side, and avenged him with the
cooper's anvil, which, endways, we rammed home; a mess-mate
shoved in the dead man's bloody Scotch cap for the wad, and sent
it flying into the line-of-battle ship. By the god of war! boys,
we hardly left enough of that craft to boil a pot of water with.
It was a hard day's work--a sad day's work, my hearties. That
night, when all was over, I slept sound enough, with a box of
cannister shot for my pillow! But you ought to have seen the
boat-load of Turkish flags one of our captains carried home; he
swore to dress his father's orchard in colours with them, just as
our spars are dressed for a gala day."

"Though you tormented the Turks at Navarino, noble Jack, yet you
came off yourself with only the loss of a splinter, it seems,"
said a top-man, glancing at our cap-tain's maimed hand.

"Yes; but I and one of the Lieutenants had a narrower escape than
that. A shot struck the side of my port-hole, and sent the
splinters right and left. One took off my hat rim clean to my
brow; another _razed_ the Lieutenant's left boot, by slicing off
the heel; a third shot killed my powder-monkey without touching
him."

"How, Jack?"

"It _whizzed_ the poor babe dead. He was seated on a _cheese of
wads_ at the time, and after the dust of the pow-dered bulwarks
had blown away, I noticed he yet