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I jumped to attend to the painter just as Clancy's voice broke in from above: "Swing her off about two points, ease your main sheet and keep an eye on that light to looard. Off, off that's good hold her and Joe, slack stays'l and then foretops'l halyards. Be ready to let go balloon halyards and stand by down-haul. Look alive."
I've sailed in a'most every kind of craft that floats from a Chinese junk to a British three-decker, and between the two extremes there's a pretty extensive choice of washin'-tubs, but the equal o' this here Buss I never did see no never; take another haul on the foretops'l halyards, boys, and shut your potato-traps for fear the wind blows your teeth overboard. Look alive!"
Dave," that was the man at the wheel, "swing her away a bit. Steady there! Slack the foretops'l and stays'l halyards. Lively now! Jibe her over, Dave! Down with the balloon, there! Quick as the Lord'll let you! Over she comes! Stand by in the boat and dory! Keep her down, Dave! Down, man, down! It's a good school." There was a moment's pause. "You in the boat and dory?"
"It hit 'em 'fore they got even one tops'l clewed down. That one, the foretops'l 'twas, split to rags.
I was standin' close to the fore hatch at the time, a-talkin' to Jim Brag, an' the father o' the babby, poor feller, he was standin' by the foretops'l halyards holdin' on to a belayin'-pin, an' lookin' as white as a sheet for I got a glance at 'im two or three times doorin' the flashes o' lightnin'. Well, stooard, there was lightnin' playin' round the mizzen truck, an' the main truck, an' the fore truck, an' at the end o' the flyin' jib-boom, an' the spanker boom; then there came a flash that seemed to set afire the entire univarse; then a burst o' thunder like fifty great guns gone off all at once in a hurry.
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