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Well, sir, all at once the great 'Santissima Trinidado' lets fly at us wi' her whole four tiers o' broadside, raking us fore and aft, and that begun it; down comes our foretopmast wi' a litter o' falling spars and top-hamper, and the decks was all at once splashed, here and there, wi' ugly blotches.
"By jingo, I think he might say `splice the main brace' now, after all this jollification!" growled Mr Stormcock, who had come up on the quarter-deck while the ship was thus being made snug for the night and left now under easy sail, consisting of the courses with reefed topsails and topgallants, as well as the jib and spanker and foretopmast staysail.
"Lord help us, we shall never weather that foaming reef there set the spanker haul out haul down the foretopmast staysail so, mind your luff, my man." The frigate now began to fire right and left, and the hissing of the shot overhead was a fearful augury of what was to take place; so sudden was the accident, that they had not had time to draw the round shot.
She had evidently seen a good deal of rough weather, and, we supposed, had suffered much in the gale which had proved so disastrous to ourselves; for her foretopmast was gone, and some of her starboard bulwarks. When we first saw her, she was, as I have already said, about two miles off and to windward, bearing down upon us.
Meanwhile, on the 16th of May, the little Victoria, with starvation and scurvy already thinning the ranks, with foretopmast gone by the board and fore-yard badly sprung, cleared the Cape of Good Hope, and thence was borne on the strong and friendly current up to the equator, which she crossed on the 8th of June.
Two of these three lost their main and mizzen masts and foretopmast; in other words, were helpless.
"It's a small piece of the foretopmast crosstrees," observed the captain, shutting up the telescope and resuming his seat. "Shall we go back an' pick it up, sir?" asked Dick Barnes gravely, giving vent to the desires of his heart, without perceiving at the moment the absurdity of the question. "Why, what would you do with it, Dick?" replied the captain, smiling.
"Maybe you'll hear, too, that his mainstay snapped and his sticks went into the water all because he carried too much sail. I shouldn't be surprised. I've attended to that, too. So I guess with his foretopmast cracked off and his mainstay snapped the old M. C. ought to romp home an easy victor, if she is an old ice-wagon.
Another belch of white smoke on the schooner, and in a minute our foremast was sliced through at the cap, and the foretopmast, with its great square sails, and their hamper, was banging on the deck, while the jibs and staysail fell into the sea to leeward, and the big ship fell off her course and nosed round towards the wind. " him! That's dismantling shot and no mistake about it.
Pedro de Valdez wore round to help him in the Capitana, of the Andalusian squadron, fouled the Santa Catalina in turning, broke his bowsprit and foretopmast, and became unmanageable. The Andalusian Capitana was one of the finest ships in the Spanish fleet, and Don Pedro one of the ablest and most popular commanders.
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