{"id":"01KG8AMDK6MHMAN3KDVXMEWNMS","cid":"bafkreigublgonutczaefyyvojpkd2gewvujyjucda6v6dnbt7gze5wifle","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":12286,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:36.278Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 2","source_file":"01KG89J19NC56FFGBCM2SWEZZY","start_line":12219,"text":"top-knots floating on their shaven skulls, like black snakes on\r\nhalf-tide rocks. By those top-knots they believed that their Prophet\r\nwould drag them up to Paradise, but they sank fifty fathoms, my\r\nhearties, to the bottom of the bay. ‘Ain’t the bloody ’Hometons going\r\nto strike yet?’ cried my first loader, a Guernsey man, thrusting his\r\nneck out of the port-hole, and looking at the Turkish\r\nline-of-battle-ship near by. That instant his head blew by me like a\r\nbursting Paixhan shot, and the flag of Neb Knowles himself was hauled\r\ndown for ever. We dragged his hull to one side, and avenged him with\r\nthe cooper’s anvil, which, endways, we rammed home; a mess-mate shoved\r\nin the dead man’s bloody Scotch cap for the wad, and sent it flying\r\ninto the line-of-battle ship. By the god of war! boys, we hardly left\r\nenough of that craft to boil a pot of water with. It was a hard day’s\r\nwork—a sad day’s work, my hearties. That night, when all was over, I\r\nslept sound enough, with a box of cannister shot for my pillow! But you\r\nought to have seen the boat-load of Turkish flags one of our captains\r\ncarried home; he swore to dress his father’s orchard in colours with\r\nthem, just as our spars are dressed for a gala day.”\r\n\r\n“Though you tormented the Turks at Navarino, noble Jack, yet you came\r\noff yourself with only the loss of a splinter, it seems,” said a\r\ntop-man, glancing at our captain’s maimed hand.\r\n\r\n“Yes; but I and one of the Lieutenants had a narrower escape than that.\r\nA shot struck the side of my port-hole, and sent the splinters right\r\nand left. One took off my hat rim clean to my brow; another _razed_ the\r\nLieutenant’s left boot, by slicing off the heel; a third shot killed my\r\npowder-monkey without touching him.”\r\n\r\n“How, Jack?”\r\n\r\n“It _whizzed_ the poor babe dead. He was seated on a _cheese of wads_\r\nat the time, and after the dust of the powdered bulwarks had blown\r\naway, I noticed he yet sat still, his eyes wide open. ‘_My little\r\nhero!_’ cried I, and I clapped him on the back; but he fell on his face\r\nat my feet. I touched his heart, and found he was dead. There was not a\r\nlittle finger mark on him.”\r\n\r\nSilence now fell upon the listeners for a time, broken at last by the\r\nSecond Captain of the Top.\r\n\r\n“Noble Jack, I know you never brag, but tell us what you did yourself\r\nthat day?”\r\n\r\n“Why, my hearties, I did not do quite as much as my gun. But I flatter\r\nmyself it was that gun that brought clown the Turkish Admiral’s\r\nmain-mast; and the stump left wasn’t long enough to make a wooden leg\r\nfor Lord Nelson.”\r\n\r\n“How? but I thought, by the way you pull a lock-string on board here,\r\nand look along the sight, that you can steer a shot about right—hey,\r\nJack?”\r\n\r\n“It was the Admiral of the fleet—God Almighty—who directed the shot\r\nthat dismasted the Turkish Admiral,” said Jack; “I only pointed the\r\ngun.”\r\n\r\n“But how did you feel, Jack, when the musket-ball carried away one of\r\nyour hooks there?”\r\n\r\n“Feel! only a finger the lighter. I have seven more left, besides\r\nthumbs; and they did good service, too, in the torn rigging the day\r\nafter the fight; for you must know, my hearties, that the hardest work\r\ncomes after the guns are run in. Three days I helped work, with one\r\nhand, in the rigging, in the same trowsers that I wore in the action;\r\nthe blood had dried and stiffened; they looked like glazed red\r\nmorocco.”\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 2"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJVA04M1ZAHF5S2XQGQJC","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J19NC56FFGBCM2SWEZZY","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AMK3X88AF6CAC63V61AAM","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG8AMDK667GWPH10W0VGR57K","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:36.454Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:53.283Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}