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At length, after what seemed to be an interminable time, although the rapid click, click of the pawls told me that in reality I was accomplishing my task very smartly, I managed to get the yard some two- thirds of the way up the mast, when I took a turn with the halliards and once more rushed aft to get a look at the boat.
"All right," he said, "we'll go and give them a bit of a startler." In front of the conning-tower there was a steel flagstaff about ten feet high, with halliards rove through a sheer in the top. He took a little roll of bunting out of a locker under the desk, opened a glass slide, brought in the halliards and bent the flag on.
Any one who has seen an outward-bound clipper ship getting under way, and heard the "shanty-songs" sung by the sailors as they toiled at capstan and halliards, will probably remember that rhymeless but melodious refrain "I'm bound to see its muddy waters, Yeo ho! that rolling river; Bound to see its muddy waters, Yeo ho! the wild Missouri."
The heads of square sails are made fast to yards, which are at right angles to the masts on which they pivot. Sails and yards are raised, lowered, swung at the proper angle to catch the wind, and held in place by halliards, lifts, braces, and sheets, which can be worked from the deck. Sheets are ropes running from the lower corners of sails.
It was while he was thus engaged that the master suddenly called down to him the intelligence that the stranger had hoisted French colours, upon which he gave the order for our own colours to be hoisted, and, jumping up on the poop, I went to the flag-locker, drew out our big ensign, bent it on to the halliards, and, with the assistance of the master, ran it up to the mizen peak.
The boatswain's pipe sounded, his gruff voice reiterated the order, and the men, who had been grouped together on the forecastle discussing the singular appearance of the weather, sprang to their stations. "Main and peak halliards let go! Man the main-tack tricing-line and down with the throat of the sail; round-in upon the mainsheet! Now, then, is there no one to attend to the peak downhaul?
"Leave the guns, lads, and repair damages!" the captain shouted. "Throw off the throat halliards of the spanker, get her down, and send a hand up to reef a fresh rope through the blocks, Mr. Probert. "Joe, take eight men with you, and stow away the topsail. Send the broken yard down. "Carpenter, see if you have got a light spar that will do, instead of it.
"No," said he to Mr McCarthy, belaying the halliards again, "it is too late now, for they must have seen it. Besides, what have we to fear if they do come? We can easily prevent them from landing, if we like, for we're nearly two to one against them in numbers should they try force; and we are stronger by far in moral as well as physical courage!" "True for you, sorr," replied the first-mate.
"So do I," agreed Leslie, as a somewhat fresher puff took the brig and caused the spars to buckle still more ominously. "Royal halliards, let go! Clew up and furl!" he shouted to the men who were lounging on the forecastle over some tasks that they were performing in the leisurely manner usual with merchant seamen.
He had already done the same, and when, during the heat of the action, any of the flags were destroyed, or the halliards shot away, I was astonished at the readiness with which he ordered one signal to be substituted for another, according as the signification might answer the purpose, without any reference to the book.
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