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At the first glance I thought it was a rock rising out of the water, but on descending to the cross-trees and looking through my glass I saw that the object was a ship on a reef, heeling over to one side, with, as far as I could make out, her topmasts, if not her lower masts, gone; at all events she had no canvas set.
'Devil a soul, sir, replied I; 'for they were all too busy with their pork and beef. 'Then why did you leave the deck without relief? 'Because, sir, my stomach would have had but little relief if I had remained. The captain, who stood by, said, 'Do you see those cross-trees, sir? 'Is it those little bits of wood that you mane, on the top there, captain? 'Yes, sir; now just go up there, and stay until I call you down.
"Yes; and the more they whistled the more it didn't come. Old Maitland was in a taking, and it wasn't safe to speak to Staples. I say, Van, old chap, he came right up to the cross-trees himself and told me I didn't know how to use a spy-glass. He said the boat with you fellows in lay just due east, and that he could make it out directly." "And did he?"
"Wot! begin to spin the whole yarn o' the Voyage afore I've had time to say, 'How d'ye do?" exclaimed Buzzby, at the same time grasping his two uproarious sons, who had, the instant he sat down, rushed at his legs like two miniature midshipmen, climbed up them as if they had been two masts, and settled on his knees as if they had been their own favourite cross-trees!
"Let me catch you sleeping in your watch again, and I'll send you to the cross-trees for four hours on a stretch. I knew I had got a hard bargain when your uncle shoved you upon me, you sneaking, sanctimonious-looking imp of Satan! But mind how you carry your helm, or you will have cause to curse the day when you shipped on board the Dolphin!"
It only remained then to turn her round and keep the wind directly abeam, and I should be going back pretty nearly over the same ground I had been traversing since Bob went overboard. Accordingly, I lost no time in getting the Lily round, when I once more hove her to, and went aloft to the cross-trees with my glass to see if the white flag were visible.
She had been everywhere in the east, the west, the north, and the south, leaving a track behind her of rapine and of murder. There she lay in motionless beauty, her low sides were painted black, with one small, narrow riband of red her raking masts were clean scraped her topmasts, her cross-trees, caps, and even running-blocks, were painted in pure white.
Canvass began to fall and open all over the ship, the top-sails were mast-headed, and, as I looked down from the fore-top-mast cross-trees, where I remained to overhaul the clew-lines, I saw that the ship was falling off, and that her sails were filling with a stiff north-west breeze.
I grasped firmly one of the top-gallant shrouds above the cross-trees, but the rope being old and decayed, parted in the horn of the cross-trees BENEATH MY HANDS.
Bob should have been in his hammock, or taking his rest in some other fashion, between breakfast- time and noon; but he was so anxious to catch a glimpse of the spot which had attracted us over so many thousand miles of ocean, and had led us to brave so many dangers, that he could not stay below, and he spent the entire morning at the cross-trees on the look-out.
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