The last boat to leave the shore had brought off to the ship what appeared to me to be a load of old iron. Apparently short crowbars fastened on rings, and cannon balls welded together by solid bars of iron or attached to each other with short lengths of chain. Fearing to ask what they were, although I knew not, I waited for some landsman less ashamed of his ignorance than I to ask their meaning. My lanky friend who swung with me was the means of my finding out what I wished.
"What are they?" he inquired. "Those things in the boat?"
"Them's Yankee tricks," answered the squint-eyed quartermaster, "and four of them will do more damage in walking through a vessel's rigging than a frigate's broadside. They're British puzzlers."
They were the dreaded star-shot and chain-shot that the English had declared barbarous and inhuman in warfare, for what reason they or no one else could tell you; but they were fearsome things in battle, and this I had afterwards a chance to witness and can subscribe to.
About noon the wind had died away, and the fog thickened, and we drifted, heaving and rearing in the smooth round seas. I had more of a chance to observe the people whom I supposed I was to live with for the next few months. The great majority of them were fine Yankee seamen, men who had served on merchant-vessels or in the Marblehead fishing-fleet, typical Down-Easters, with a scattering of sailors who had seen service on board vessels of the navy. There were a few foreigners, Portuguese or Spaniards, I should judge, quick, active men with black hair and wiry frames. Some rough-looking characters there were, too, whose faces showed instincts not all the best, and, as I have said before, a scattering of countrymen making their first voyage filled out the complement.
The threshing and moving of the vessel seemed to discommode these latter, and many were ill, and wished themselves ashore, I take it, from their looks (one or two desired to die, I am sure). In the little steerage four or five prize-masters bunked together. They were mostly men past middle age, and had the appearance of broken down seafarers, and the majority of them were prone to the bottle habit, unless they belied their appearance. In all there were crowded on board the Young Eagle in the neighborhood of one hundred and thirty souls, perhaps more.
I have never seen any one so careful of detail as Captain Temple. He would permit no slouching in appearance, as well as duty. There was an attempt at uniform; and the forecastle, and in fact the whole vessel, was inspected by him as regularly as if she were a man-of-war.
Odd to relate, the skipper himself was a teetotaler when at sea, no matter what his behavior was when dry ground was beneath him. To show his carefulness and regard for neatness, I heard him rate a man severely for not being clean shaven. His own costume, in which he looked most picturesque, would have attracted attention anywhere. He wore his huge cocked hat set lightly athwartships on his head, his neat blue coat fitted his trim figure to a nicety, and his legs were encased in Hessian boots with gold tassels, like those of a dandy. In fact he was a handsome man to look at, and there were stories about his being a great favorite with the ladies.
Junior officers get their key from their commander, and although our Lieutenants did not present so fine an appearance or wear their clothes so well, they were a good-looking set, and all young men with the exception of Edmundson, who may have turned forty odd.
All night long the fog hung about us. We had been drilled during the day, and never have I seen a crew pick up so much knowledge in such a short space of time.