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Then her sharp bowsprit turned around a little, till it was aimed at that cleft between the rocks. She gathered speed and struck the billowing seas outside and turned a bit. Then the big sails began to rise, as did the jibs, and I saw a man run out to the end of the bowsprit as a thick white rope ran up to the fore topmast head and broke out into a fleecy white cloud of silk.
At this moment our Long Tom spoke again, and the next instant a loud cheer broke from our lads, for the shot had taken the brig's fore- topmast just below the sheave of the topsail-tye, and away went the fore-topsail, topgallant-sail, and royal over to leeward, while the flying and standing jibs and the fore-topmast staysail collapsed and drooped into the water under her forefoot, with the result that she instantly shot up into the wind.
To our anxious eyes she seemed to sweep along like a sun-gleam on a cloudy day.... Both her topsails were clear to us.... We could see her jibs swollen with venom, and past them the great sweep of her mainsails with the booms well out over the side to take the full of the wind.... The sweat poured down us, the veins stood out of us like cords.... Once, in the frenzy of my thoughts, the gleaming white sails on our quarter, and the crisp green waves alongside, and the dingy brown boat, and Le Marchant's fiery crimson neck, all shot with red for a moment, and I loosed one hand and drew it over my brow to see if it was blood or only sweat that trickled there.
We have all many defects in our manners, in our habits, and in our constitutional ways of thinking and speaking and acting, defects that tempt those who live nearest us to fall into annoyances with us that sometimes deepen into dislike, and even positive disgust, till it has been seen, in some extreme cases, that home-life has become a very prison-house, in which the impatient prisoner chafes and jibs and strikes out as he does nowhere else.
A flock of seagulls could be plainly heard honking high overhead, and a chattering flock of stormy petrels soared down, coming to rest on the water in the wake of the sloop. "I'll take in the jibs. Mind your wheel. We are in for a blow," announced the skipper. The captain quickly furled the jibs, then took a reef in the mainsail.
The King Philip, another fast beauty, made her bow and dipped her jibs to her mates in harbor. At sight of her master, Al McNeill, a great shout goes up. "Ho, ho! boys, here's Lucky Al! Whose seine was it couldn't hold a jeesly big school one day off here last spring but Billie Simms'? Yes, sir, Billie Simms.
The ship answered quickly and rounded to while her weather fore and mizzen yards flew forward until they touched the starboard backstays and the men hauled in the slack of the braces. With the main yard square to check her way the jibs drooped down along the stays. "Mr. Broadrick, you may let go the starboard anchor and furl sails."
I shan't have very wide swing with Peters over me, but I'll see that the boys don't get abused when he's bowsed up his jib. No right to speak before, but now I won't stand it. 'That sounds mysteriously awful; could I ask what nautical torture "bowsing jibs" is? asked Mrs Jo, in a tone of deep interest. 'Getting drunk.
Whatever doubts may have been engendered as to the nature of the island, there could be no longer any about the character of its inhabitants. "Dey am birds!" suggested the Coromantee; "nuffin more and nuffin less dan birds!" "You're right, Snowy," assented the sailor. "They be birds; and all the better they be so. Yes; they're birds, for sartin. I can tell the cut o' some o' their jibs.
"The wind blows warm and the wind blows fair, Oh, the wind blows westerly Our jibs are up and our anchor's in, For the Duncan's going to sea. And will you wait for me, sweetheart? Oh, will you wait for me? And will you be my love again When I come back from sea? "Oh, sway away and start her sheets And point her easterly It's tackle-pennant, boom her out And turn the Duncan free.
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