A Queer Race: The Story of a Strange People — page 32: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

A QUEER RACE. a guns, their bodies streaming with perspiration, their faces blackened with powder-smoke, themselves wild with ex- citement, cheering and yelling hke fiends; the officers brandishing their swords and shouting their orders; the roar of artillery; the crash of the Spaniards’ balls as they struck our hull; and, above all, the dreadful pools of blocd at my feet, and the screams of the poor stricken ones as they feli at their posts or writhed in agony on the deck, thrilled my soul with horror, and, though I prayed fervently for the success of our arms, I feared that 30d would never bless a victory gained at so terrible a price. ‘But the horror of the sights on deck was surpassed by the scene in the cockpit, where, during the engage- ment, I spent nearly all my time, helping the surgeon, and doing my utmost to solace and console the poor wounded. ‘Their sufferings were heartrending; the sight of their mangled bodies was almost more than I could bear, and I had several times to turn away, or I should have swooned outright. ‘‘ Poor Myers, a tiny midshipman of fourteen, a fair- haired and sweet-tempered boy, whom I greatly loved, was brought down, shot through the lungs. ‘The surgeon shock his head. ‘He is beyond my skill,’ he whisperea. ‘}] must leave him to you.’ The poor child looked at me with Inck-luster eyes; the pallor of death was on his face; and as I tried to cheer him with hopes of a speedy release from his sufferings, and a happy hereafter, the tears streamed down my checks, and I could searce speak for sobhing. But he seemed to be looking afar off, and gave no heed. ‘Mother, mother,’ he moaned, ‘lam coming home;’ and then he died. ‘¢T was turning to the surgeon to te’l him that all was over, when we were affrighted and almost thrown off our feet by a terrific explosion, which shook the ship from stem to stern, and made her heel over as if she had been struck by a heavy sea. ‘‘Not knowing what had befallen, but fearing the worst, L ran up the hatchway. The firing had ceased, and consternation was written on every face. I had no need to ask the cause. The Ruy Blas had blown up, and parts of her, which had been projected to a prodigious height, were still falling into the water, where, amid a (E(0) nal @ ool) ES) (E(0) m “