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The lighter canvas was instantly handed young Sam and one of the men who had gone in the boat were ordered out on the jibboom to furl the flying jib. As they were about this work, a tremendous sea struck the bows, the gaskets got loose, the jibboom was carried away, and with it the two poor fellows who were endeavouring to secure the sail.
All you can see, then, for the next minute, is his long gray form stretched out straight and "streaking it" through the low sage-brush, head erect, eyes right, and ears just canted a little to the rear, but showing you where the animal is, all the time, the same as if he carried a jib.
All the light spars had been sent down, and for fifteen days the ship had labored in the sea under close-reefed topsails and jib, trying to make weather, but without gaining a mile. On the sixteenth day the weather cleared up a little and the sun came out, and an observation was got, which showed that the ship had been carried into the vicinity before described.
The Bermudian rig had been evolved to meet local conditions. Imagine a cutter with one single long spar in the place of a mast and topmast; this spar is stepped rather farther aft than it would be in an ordinary cutter, and there is one huge mainsail, "leg-of-mutton" shaped, with a boom but no gaff, and a very large jib.
Even the elbows of his coat and the knees of his trowsers were wide open with ill-concealed laughter. He laughed when he saw me, and laughed more than ever when he heard me "tale Norsk." There was something uncommonly amusing to this little shaver in the cut of a man's jib who could not speak good Norwegian.
This officer was the third lieutenant; he had not joined us long: his name I do not recollect; he was a good-sized man, between thirty and forty years of age. The men called him "Jib and-stay-sail-Jack;" for if he had the watch in the night, he would be always bothering the men to alter the sails, and it was "up jib" and "down jib," and "up foresail" and "down foresail," every minute.
I did not see what went on elsewhere, though I felt the sudden surge and heel of the schooner as the wind-pressures changed to the jibing of the fore- and main-sails. My hands were full with the flying-jib, jib, and staysail; and by the time this part of my task was accomplished the Ghost was leaping into the south-west, the wind on her quarter and all her sheets to starboard.
Oh, I remember; I got a cut over the head one of their hatchet men. Did they hurt you?" "They got the loot," she growled. "Filthy vermin! And just to make everything pleasant, the schooner's sinking." "SINKING!" exclaimed Wilbur. Moran was already on her feet. "We'll have to beach her," she cried, "and we're six miles out. Up y'r jib, mate!" The two set the jib, flying-jib, and staysails.
Long and tender was the last embrace of the mother and daughter, of the father and his beloved child. With tears blinding her eyes, with tottering steps, Ruth passed across the gang-plank. A sailor drew it in, and unloosed the cable. The vessel swung with the tide from its moorings, the jib and mainsail filled with the breeze, and glided away.
Then came the sharp cheep, cheep of sheaves upon their pins as the topsails were sheeted home and the yards mast-headed, followed by a still louder flapping of canvas as the jib was hoisted. Then came the dull, heavy crunch of the carpenter's axe as he smote at the cables.
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