The sea view was quite shut out--I looked all round and could discern no
vestige of the entrance. Right ahead there was about a furlong of land
cleared at the only spot which one could call a beach,--that is, a hard
shore of sand and pebbles. Had you tried to get ashore at any other
point, your fate would have been that of the Master of Ravenswood; as
fatal, that is, without the gentility; for you would have been
suffocated in black mud, in place of clean sea--sand. There was a long
shed in the centre of this cleared spot, covered in with boards, and
thatched with palm leaves; it was open below, a sort of capstan--house,
where a vast quantity of sails, anchors, cordage, and most kinds of sea
stores were stowed, carefully covered over with tarpawling. Overhead
there was a flooring laid along the couples of the roof, the whole
length of the shed, forming a loft of nearly sixty feet long, divided by
bulkheads into a variety of apartments, lit by small rude windows in the
thatch, where the crews of the vessels, I concluded, were occasionally
lodged during the time they might be under repair. The boat was manned,
and Obed took me ashore with him.
We landed near the shed I have described, beneath which we encountered
about forty of the most uncouth and ferocious--looking rascals that my
eyes had ever been blessed withal; they were of every shade, from the
woolly Negro and long--haired Indian, to the sallow American and fair
Biscayan; and as they intermitted their various occupations of mending
sails, fitting and stretching rigging, splicing ropes, making spun--yam,
coopering gun carriages, grinding pikes and cutlasses, and filling
cartridges, to look at me, they grinned and nodded to each other, and
made sundry signs and gestures which made me regret many a past
peccadillo that in more prosperous times I little thought on or repented
of, and I internally prayed that I might be prepared to die as became a
man, for my fate appeared to be sealed.
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