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The rigging has been repeatedly set up, and is now so well stretched that it is ready for the last pull before going out of harbour. This done, and the dead-eyes and ratlines squared, the shroud and backstay mats are put on, and the masts and studding-sail booms carefully scraped.
To increase our terror, a cry came from Alfred, who had been tossed from his hold and nearly cast overboard, but he caught the backstay as our yet unconquered boat rose from the blow like some brave but wounded animal. The water was several inches deep about our feet, and the good Youth had lost half its buoyancy. Then came the Captain's voice again, steady and strong, but full of feeling
Each left a hook in the knot of the inner buntline, as he went out, and dropped the ball of marline on deck. The same was done at the outer buntlines, and at the leachlines. Here the mate returned, according to his orders, leaped upon the rigging, and thence upon a backstay, when he slid on deck with a velocity that set aim at defiance. Notwithstanding the quickness of his motions, Mr.
The next moment, he had slid down the backstay and stood on deck, with a grin, a nod, and a gesture of the finger that said "yes"; the next again, and he was back sweating and squirming at the wheel, his tired face streaming and smiling, and his hair and the rags and corners of his clothes lashing round him in the wind.
On one occasion, during a game, both the midshipmen and the ship's boys were thus amusing themselves. Several of the top-men were on the main-top-mast yard. A sudden splash was heard. "A man overboard!" was the cry. Quick as lightning a ship's boy was seen gliding down a backstay. As he touched the hammock-nettings, instead of jumping down on deck, he plunged overboard.
The ship had given a sudden lurch or roll to leeward. I slid down a backstay to the deck. Without a moment's thought I seized a hencoop loose on deck, and threw it overboard. The gale which the captain had seen was coming, at that instant struck the ship. Over she heeled, till it seemed that she would never rise again. Like a mad horse she rushed through the water.
I saw, however, that he was not really angry, and I fancy that I gained some credit with him by the way I had sprung on to the backstay. Had I missed it I should have been dashed to pieces. At length we brought up in the Downs, with two anchors down, the wind blowing a heavy gale at south-west.
Though, as before, we at first baited with pieces of white linen, yet as soon as a mackerel was caught, we put a bit of it on to our hooks, at which its relatives eagerly bit. The ends of the lines were fastened either to the backstay or the taffrail, allowing them to pass over our finger, so that the moment a mackerel took the bait we could feel it.
I had crept into a sheltered corner and here, my knees drawn up, my back against one of the weather guns, presently fell a-dozing. I was roused by a kick to find the ship rolling prodigiously, the air full of spray and a piping wind, and Captain Belvedere scowling down on me, supporting himself by grasping a backstay in one hand and flourishing a case-bottle in the other.
For the next week the three mast-heads were so loaded with midshipmen, that the boatswain proposed a preventer backstay, that the top-masts might not go over the side; but shortly after, Captain L , who was not pleased at the falsehood which Mr W had circulated, and who had many other reasons for parting with him, succeeded in having him appointed to another ship; after which the midshipmen walked up and down the quarter-deck with their hands in their pockets, as before.
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