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"Then heave a shot across the rascal's fore-foot at once," shouted I; "and you, my man, hoist away the ensign at the flash of the gun," I continued to the fellow who was standing by the peak signal halliards.
The order was given; the men sprang to the topgallant halliards and sheets, cast them off, manned the clewlines and buntlines, and clewed up the topgallants.
"For your lives now, chaps, before another sea comes! I can't slack away these halliards. Bob, out knife, and up in the rings; cut them away." The gaff had fallen, but it was not clear yet.
The officer of the watch keeps one eye to windward, makes up his mind what sail he'll shorten, and then yells an order that pierces the wind like a shot, 'Stand by your royal halliards! As the squall swoops down and the ship heels over to it he yells again, 'Let go your royal halliards, clew 'em up and make 'em fast! Down come the yards, with hoarse roaring from the thrashing canvas.
A fragment of a shell went through one of the ventilators, and the colours of the mainmast were shot through. The concussion from the 8-inch guns on the poop shattered the whaleboats, and they had to be cut adrift. A fragment of a shell that burst over the quarter-deck cut the signal halliards which Lieutenant Brumby held in his hand.
The men on deck, who had been engaged on various small jobs since they came up from dinner, looked astounded at the order, but without hesitation ran up the ratlines at the top of their speed, while the watch below looked equally surprised as they glanced upwards and around at the deep blue of the sky. "Quick, quick!" the Turk exclaimed. "Let go all sheets and halliards!"
A casual remark by Miss Onslow upon this unpleasant feature of our adventure set me thinking, with the result that before leaving our mass of wreckage for good, I secured the signal halliards to serve as a fishing-line together with a fair supply of other small cordage, the main-royal which I cut away from the wreckage to serve as a sort of tent, to shelter my companion from the dew at night-time and a small spike nail or two, which, with considerable labour, I cut out of the planking of the derelict that had brought disaster upon us.
I shouted, sending my voice down through the open companion. "Never mind about the hatch; leave everything as it is, for the moment, and clap on to these main halliards; there is an alarm of some sort ashore, and if it happens to be that they have discovered me to be missing, they will come off to this felucca the first thing.
The stream anchors were cut away, and then one of the bowers also; all the boats, save one, the smallest, were scuttled and cast adrift; purchases were got on all the sheets and halliards, and the sails hauled flat as boards, and kept well wetted down; some of the water tanks were pumped out, to alter the trim and lighten her; the bulwarks and rails partly cut away, and, as a final resort, the maintopmast studdingsail was set, but the boom broke at the iron and the whole thing went adrift in a few moments.
We follers along arter him, goin' two feet to his one, still carryin' all three royals, with hands at halliards and clewlines. Just afore we gits to him the old man sings out, 'Clew up the royals, haul down the flyin' jib, haul up the crochick and mainsail. By this time we was well under the land and in smooth water.
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