Digital heart book

She
lay head to the reef, where the huge blue wall of the
rollers was for ever ranging up and crumbling down; and
to gain her starboard side, we must pass below the
stern. The rudder was hard aport, and we could read
the legend--
FLYING SCUD

HULL.
On the other side, about the break of the poop, some
half a fathom of rope-ladder trailed over the rail, and
by this we made our entrance.
She was a roomy ship inside, with a raised poop
standing some three feet higher than the deck, and a
small forward house, for the men's bunks and the
galley, just abaft the foremast. There was one boat on
the house, and another and larger one, in beds on deck,
on either hand of it. She had been painted white, with
tropical economy, outside and in; and we found, later
on, that the stanchions of the rail, hoops of the
scuttle-butt, etc., were picked out with green. At
that time, however, when we first stepped aboard, all
was hidden under the droppings of innumerable sea-
birds.


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