Читать книгу Round the Galley Fire онлайн

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But the musicians began to slacken; the piano had given over, and Jack had lighted his pipe forward, and was beginning to remember that his watch below would be up in two hours. By-and-by a bell was rung in the cuddy, and those who looked through the skylight saw that the grog and the biscuits were on the table. The music ended suddenly, and the fiddlers and the others gathered around the cuddy door, where they were received by the steward, who handed them each a glass of liquor. In twos and threes the steerage and ’tween-deck passengers went below, and in half an hour the ship’s decks were deserted save by the steersman, the pacing officer of the watch, and some dark figures leaning over the head-rail, visible from the poop under the arched foot of the foresail. Up through the booby and main hatches would come fitfully the sound of a child crying, or a woman’s voice talking low, or the growling hum of men; otherwise the silence was profound, the ship like a phantom in the moonlight, and nothing audible aloft but the moan of the tropical night breeze in the rigging, with now and again the creak of a sheave as the light swing of the swell hove the great ship very gently to windward, and brought an extra strain upon the taut sheets.