So he went down belowdecks and opened up his sea-chest and took out his Janissary-sword in its gaudy sheath, and brought it up abovedecks. The crew had formed up into a few distinct clusters, obviously the beginnings of mutinous conspiracies. Jack climbed up onto the prow of a longboat that was lashed to the deck, and from there vaulted up onto the roof of a pilot-house that stood just aft of the foremast. From this height, he had a view up and down the length of God's Wounds and was struck (as usual) by what a narrow sliver of a thing she was. And yet she, or any other European cargo-vessel, was a wallowing pig compared to those galleys, which slid over the top of the water like Dutch ice-skates hissing over the top of a frozen canal. They had enormous saffron-colored triangular sails to drive them forward as well as the oars, and they were approaching in single file from directly astern, so that God's Wounds 's few paltry cannon could not fire a broadside. There was a single swivel-gun astern that might have pelted the lead galley with a tangerine-sized cannonball or two, but the men near it were arguing, instead of loading the weapon.