"Well, a few minutes ago--it may be five, or it may be ten--I'd just swung round to walk aft from the main riggin' when, as my eyes travelled away out here over the port quarter, I got the notion into my head that there was somethin' goin' on down there, for it seemed to me that I'd got a glimpse--out of the corner of my eye, as it might be--of a small sparkin', like--like--well, hang me if I know what it was like, unless it might be twenty or thirty pistols or muskets all being fired close after one another."
