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He knew that Christian Vellacott wished to tell him no more, and he was content that it should be so, but he had noticed a circumstance which, from the young journalist's position, was probably invisible. "Seemed to me," he said reflectively, as he looked upwards to see if the foretopsail was shivering, "as if he had something in his hand when a' fell." Christian followed the Captain's gaze.
We got it wrapt round the yard, and passed gaskets over it as snugly as possible, and were just on deck again, when with another loud rent, which was heard throughout the ship, the foretopsail, which had been double-reefed, split in two athwartships, just below the reef-band, from earing to earing. Here again it was down yard, haul out reef-tackles, and lay out upon the yard for reefing.
Take a pull on these foretopsail halyards; look alive, lads!" "Aye, aye, sir!" replied the men. There was no occasion whatever for these orders. The captain knew that well enough, but he had his own reasons for giving them. The men knew that, too, and they understood his reasons when they observed the increased sternness of his eyes, and the compression of his lips. Inclination and duty!
And these deluges grew more frequent, for the gale was steadily increasing in violence, howling and shrieking out of the gilded eastern horizon as if Lucifer and his angels had been hurled anew from heaven. About noon the close-reefed foretopsail burst open from earing to earing, and then ripped up to the yard, the corners stretching out before the wind and cracking like musket shots.
That night he got the boy to write a few lines to his wife at his dictation. They were very brief, very melancholy, very reverential. Here is the letter: "DEAR WIFE, We arrived here yesterday after a very rough passage. I hope you're well as it leaves me at present. The R arrived this morning's tide, and reports that Jack was knocked off the foretopsail yardarm, and they never see'd him again.
"In the Speedy," said Cochrane, "the sailcloth was so thin that, when I made my observation, I always took my meridian through the foretopsail and my horizon through the foresail."
It was served, and as it contained meat in plenty it was satisfactory; then, smoking their clay pipes, they mustered on deck and, more or less unconsciously, divided into two parts, the Galways separate from the Limericks. "Loose the foretopsail, Hennesey," said Murphy, as he looked at them. "Overhaul the gear and stop it so ye can come down. Thin take the halyards to the fo'c'stle capstan.
Sometimes it was a frightened trader, which had come tearing in with her canvas curved like a lady's bodice, because she had seen a patched foretopsail rising slowly above the violet water-line. Sometimes it was from a coaster, which had found a waterless Bahama cay littered with sun-dried bodies. Once there came a man who had been mate of a Guineaman, and who had escaped from the pirate's hands.
In the P.M. observed, meerly for the sake of Observing, an Eclipse of the Sun. In the A.M. brought another Foretopsail to the Yard, the old one being quite wore out. Wind East-South-East; course North 32 1/2 degrees West; distance 85 miles; latitude 0 degrees 14 minutes South, longitude 19 degrees 43 minutes West. Wednesday, 16th. Light breezes and fair weather.
The "Speedy" was at first held by her anchor; then, when that had been raised, she began to drift towards the shore. The wind was blowing from the sea; the jib and the foretopsail were hoisted, and the vessel gradually approached the island. From the two posts of the Mercy and the Chimneys they watched her without giving a sign of life, but not without some emotion.
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