It being near my dinner-hour and night's rest, I stopped the _Speranza_
some fifteen yards from her, and commenced to pace my spacious poop, as
usual, before eating; and as I paced, I would glance at her, wondering
at her destiny, and who were the human men that had lived on her, their
Christian names, and family names, their age, and thought, and way of
life, and beards; till the desire arose within me to go to her, and see;
and I threw off my outer garments, uncovered and unroped the cedar
cutter--the only boat, except the air-pinnace, left to me intact--and
got her down by the mizzen five-block pulley-system. But it was a
ridiculous nonsense, for having paddled to her, I was thrown into
paroxysms of rage by repeated failures to scale her bulwarks, low as
they were; my hands, indeed, could reach, but I found no hold upon the
slimy mass, and three rope-ends which I caught were also untenably
slippery: so that I jerked always back into the boat, my clothes a mass
of filth, and the only thought in my blazing brain a twenty-pound
charge of guncotton, of which I had plenty, to blow her to uttermost
Hell.
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