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It had been my original intention to ascend to the yard-arm, and, laying in from thence, descend the fore-rigging to the deck; but, pausing for a moment, in my anxiety to see whether Bob would scrape clear which he very cleverly did, having kept good way on the boat I found that, aided by the roll of the vessel, I might easily swing myself in upon her rail.
The water flies over her in sheets. Cloete's senses almost leave him. He thinks of nothing. He's numb all over, till there's a shout: Here he is! . . . They see a figure in the fore-rigging waiting they slack away on the grapnel-line and get him in the boat quite easy. There is a little shouting it's all mixed up with the noise of the sea.
In a furious blast a heavy sea broke her adrift from her anchor, and she came into helpless collision with a ship right astern of her. Grinding fiercely into this other very large vessel, the Edina tore herself free with loss of bowsprit and jib-boom, all her fore-rigging being in dire ruin and confusion.
I extended the line between the cloudy radiance and the mizzen-topmast and found that it must strike somewhere near the fore-rigging on the port side. Even as I did this, the radiance vanished. The driving clouds of the breaking gale were alternately thickening and thinning before the face of the moon, but never exposing the face of the moon.
"Ay, ay, sir," answered the lad; and in another moment he was dancing nimbly up the fore-rigging; his form just dimly discernible in the dark shadow of the sails. Presently he hailed from the cross-trees, "I can't see nothing, sir; but the sky away over there looks uncommon bright, and it seems to flicker now and then, as if there was a big fire burning under it."
"Ah, now, if that poor Dane had borne up like a man and clung to the ship, he might have been as well and happy as any of us," observed Tom to Fid as they were together setting up the fore-rigging. "Remember, Tim, whatever happens, never despair. It's wicked and unmanly not like a true British sailor; and that's what I hope you will consider yourself all the days of your life."
They had, therefore, to adopt the dangerous plan of running with the wind, right in upon the fore-rigging, and risk being smashed by the mast, which was beating about with its living load like an eccentric battering-ram. But these Ramsgate men would stick at nothing. They rushed in and received many severe blows, besides dashing into the iron windlass of the wreck.
The deck was occupied by some twenty men or so, some of whom were asleep in the lee scuppers, while others, in little groups of two and three, hung over the bulwarks, staring idiotically at the white foam that swept aft from the schooner's keen cut-water; and four, who had probably assumed the duty of looking out, staggered and lurched in pairs, holding each other on their legs, to-and-fro between the windlass and the fore-rigging, occasionally indulging in an ineffectual attempt to exchange remarks.
The rest of the people were still on deck except one man, who had gone up the fore-rigging, about to let fly the sheets and brail up; but, nearly worn out with labouring at the pumps, they must have very slowly obeyed the orders they received, for almost before a sheet was let go, another furious squall struck the brig. Over, over she heeled. Jim and I slid down into the main-top.
For the rest, she was very narrow forward, as I think I said everybody said she'd never stand the strain of her fore-rigging when they got to driving her on a long passage. And she carried an ungodly bowsprit thirty-seven feet outboard easily the longest bowsprit out of Gloucester. Topmasts to match, and there was some sail to drive a vessel.
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