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Rodd took it into his head to go up to the main cross-trees with the glass. He had said nothing, but he had some idea as to the possibility of the sloop coming into sight again, and he had made up his mind if he could see her in the distance to give Captain Chubb a broad hint, and urge him to press on full sail right through the night.
As for Lucy, she had been so well cared for and protected from the bitter fury of the wind, that, although much exhausted, terrified, and shaken, she was neither so be-numbed nor so helpless as some of her less fortunate companions. Presently the lifeboat was close on the lee side of the mast, and a cheer burst from her crew when they saw the number of survivors on the cross-trees.
I suppose you don't want me to show you the road to the main-to'gallant cross-trees; once I knew it as well as anybody, and I could make quicker time now than most of the youngsters," and the captain gave a knowing glance aloft, while at this moment somebody crossed the gangway plank. It was a broken-down old sailor, who was a familiar sight in Dunport.
When we were lying up by a wharf, I used to spend my spare hours in fishing, or in flinging fiat pebbles from a cleft-stick at the water-rats. When we were under sail I used to sit aloft in the cross-trees, looking out at the distant sea.
However, by dint of beating about a little in the dark, and now and then knocking up a peaceable inhabitant to inquire the way, we at last came to something which there was no mistaking. Two enormous wooden pots painted black, and suspended by asses' ears, swung from the cross-trees of an old top-mast, planted in front of an old doorway.
Mingo ascended to the cross-trees, where she and the gentleman siamang seemed to hold a conference. The latter then sprang up to the topgallant yard, and was closely followed by his mate. They turned somersets, and went through a variety of athletic feats, which greatly interested their audience on deck, who gave them a round of applause.
"This a good look-out, sir," observed the midshipman; "and one that is somewhat loftier than our cross-trees. A pair of sharp eyes might see every thing that passes within twenty miles; and, as a proof of it, I shall be the first to sing out, 'sail, ho!"
But when I had just made up my mind to this which the sailors would have called being washed away I rose once more to the surface and struck up like a good one! I was at the cross-trees in a breath, and once in safety there, I looked back both with shame and indignation. When my job was finished, I went higher up in a sort of dogged humour.
Fluxion had been sent to the fore cross-trees with a powerful glass early in the morning, and the Josephine had been discovered by the ship long before the Young America was seen by the pilot.
With a last long scrutiny at the unbroken circle of the sea, David Grief swung out of the cross-trees and slowly and dejectedly descended the ratlines to the deck. "Leu-Leu Atoll is sunk, Mr. Snow," he said to the anxious-faced young mate. "If there is anything in navigation, the atoll is surely under the sea, for we've sailed clear over it twice or the spot where it ought to be.
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