United States or Guam ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !


The flag-staff he had got George Macwha to erect for him, at a very small outlay; and he had himself fitted it with shrouds and a cross-yard, and signal halliards; for he had always a fancy for the sea, and boats, and rigging of all sorts. And he had a great red flag, too, which he used to hoist on special occasions-�on market-days and such like; and often besides when a good wind blew.

And, besides, he thanked Captain Sol for selling them the things. Then he went away. Then Captain Sol had the sailors fix the sails so that the ship would go ahead, and he had a sailor stand at the flag halliards and dip the flag for a salute to the English ships. And the Industry sailed away from those English ships towards Gibraltar, and pretty soon the ships were out of sight. And that's all.

With some difficulty he persuaded Marcia to hold the tiller while he let go the halliards. The mainsail came down with a run, and the boat kept on with the jib only, though of course at a slower rate. They were still two or three miles from shore, and the storm increased momently. They saw Lynn Beach without hope of gaining it, the wind driving them northward.

Along with the pampero came a terrific shower of hail that lacerated our faces and almost took away our breath for the moment; but, never heeding this, on the skipper issuing his orders, we were up aloft again reefing topsails in a jiffey, and, as soon as the halliards had been manned and the yards rehoisted, the courses were furled and the jib hauled down, the fore-topmast staysail being set in its place.

Two hands went to each of the halliards, while, as the sail rose, Tom Virtue fastened the toggles round the mast. "All ready, Watkins?" "All ready, sir." "Slack off the weather foresheet, then, and haul aft the leeward. Slack out the mizzen sheet a little, Jack. That's it; now she's off again, like a duck."

"Let go the jib halliards!" was the next command, some of the hands starting forwards to man the down haul; but the moment the halliards were cast loose, the accommodating sail saved us any further trouble in the way of stowing it, by blowing clean away to leeward with a report as if a small cannon had been fired off on the fo'c's'le floating out against the dark background of the sky like a child's kite whose string has parted and let it go to grief, tumbling down from its soaring height, and disappearing in the dim distance to leeward, where the clouds had already vanished.

"Now, then, the next thing to do is to run up the Stars and Stripes and plant the Eagle flag. Then you'll be all O.K." Little Andy Bowles made the woods behind them echo with the stirring call of "assembly," and halliards were reeved on a previously cut pole, about fifteen feet in height.

By dint of exhortation so earnest that it almost amounted to bullying I succeeded in awaking the Frenchmen to a sense of the urgency of the case, and persuaded them to put some liveliness into their movements, by which means we quickly hauled in the whole of the signal halliards, to the other end of which a light heaving-line was bent.

Reaching it, I was able without much difficulty to form from the halliards of the various sails and the other running-gear still attached to the spars a warp long enough to reach from the foremast to the timber to which the others were clinging, with which I swam back.

And she made brave weather of it holding her own stoutly, cheerily shaking the frothy water from her bows: though 'twas an unfair task to put her to. Skipper Tommy put the first hand at the mainsail halliards, the second hand at the foresail, with orders to cut away at the lift of his hand, lest the vessel get on her beam's ends and capsize.