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I remember on my first practice cruise, in 1857, standing in the main-top of the ship with a member of the class immediately before mine, the son of a North Carolina member of Congress. He was entirely unmoved, simply repeating certitudes to which familiarity had reconciled him; I, to whom such talk was new, as much aghast as though I had been told my mother would die within the like term.
"Then I'll give you something to do, sir. Go up to the mast-head, and wait there till I call you down. Come, sir, I'll show you the way," continued the master, walking aft. Jack followed till they were on the quarter-deck. "Now, sir, up to the main-top gallant mast-head; perch yourself upon the cross trees up with you." "What am I to go up there for, sir?" inquired Jack.
Having finished his job to his satisfaction, he prepared to descend from aloft, but, before doing so, cast his eyes round the scene, and nearly fell out of the main-top in his alarm; for there, coming round a point half a mile away, and concealed as yet from those on the beach by a low point, was a large fleet of canoes filled with natives, who were doubtless hoping to come upon the beached vessels unawares.
The white ones are very large, and their down is equal to that of the swan. At last Cape Horn and its swelling seas were left behind, and we reached Valparaiso in about sixty days from Rio. We anchored in the open roadstead, and spent there about ten days, visiting all the usual places of interest, its foretop, main-top, mizzen-top, etc.
He wanted to dodge under the bulwark and lie there; but he daren't. So he ran breathlessly, skipping as a bullet spanked the deck at his feet. They were in the enemy's main-top, swarms of them, tiny figures, crowding along the spars, grinning at him, he thought. How on earth with a handful of men, climbing up the rigging under a pelting fire, he would ever clear that lot out!...
He now gave himself up for lost; but to disengage himself from them he made a dive into the water, which caused them to quit their grasp. On rising again he swam to the shrouds, and having reached the main-top, seated himself on an arm chest which was lashed to the mast.
Just at that moment a sailor, who had mounted to the main-top to do something to the rigging, passed close be- hind me. "What's the matter?" I asked. "The wind has changed," he answered, adding something which I could not hear distinctly, but which sounded like "dead against us."
"Is yonder schooner one of your cruisers?" I had not expected such a question as this, and I did not think it at all a fair one for Don Felix to put I scarcely knew what reply to make to it, and in order to gain time I begged the loan of the glass once more, which having obtained I composedly ascended to the main-top, and from that advantageous stand-point renewed my examination.
Halting for an instant at the foot of the ladder, and with both hands grasping the ornamental knobs of the man-ropes, Father Mapple cast a look upwards, and then with a truly sailor-like but still reverential dexterity, hand over hand, mounted the steps as if ascending the main-top of his vessel.
He continued to affirm that it must be the man he had seen in the playground on the occasion of the first meeting of the supper club; and that the footprint in the dust had been a man's, and much larger than Kennedy's boot could have produced. This outlawing of the "Main-top" and difference of opinion with Diggory spoiled all chance of games and good fellowship.
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