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The wind rises, but it has not got up to my table-lands yet. Quick, and see to it. By masts and keels! he takes me for the hunchbacked skipper of some coasting smack. Send down my main-top-sail yard! Ho, gluepots! Loftiest trucks were made for wildest winds, and this brain-truck of mine now sails amid the cloud-scud. Shall I strike that?
The fellow was on the main-top-sail yard, having just run out, and lashed the heel of a top-gallant-studding-sail boom, in order to set the sail. Before he lay in to the mast, he raised his Herculean frame, and took a look to windward.
Twenty minutes later, we saw the ship back her main-top-sail, and, by means of the glasses, we plainly perceived the boat alongside of her. After some delay, the yawl was hoisted on the deck of the ship, and the latter filled her top-sail. I had some curiosity to ascertain what would come next.
"I'm of opinion, sir we'll drink His Majesty, if you've no objection, Admiral Bluewater, I'm of opinion, we shall stretch the threads of that new main-top-sail, before we've done with the breeze, sir. I believe I've not told you, yet, that I've had the new sail bent, since we last spoke together on the subject. It's a good fit, sir; and, close-reefed, the sails stands like the side of a house."
At eleven, saw the commodore bearing south, but the squalls coming on so heavy, were obliged to hand the main-top-sail, and at twelve o'clock, were under our courses.
I noticed that my friend Fred Borders was the first man to spring up the shrouds and lay out on the main-top-sail yard. It was so dark that I could scarcely see the masts. While I was gazing up, I thought I observed a dark object drop from the yard; at the same moment there was a loud shriek, followed by a plunge in the sea.
All sail being set, he now cast loose the life-line, reserved for swaying him to the main royal-mast head; and in a few moments they were hoisting him thither, when, while but two thirds of the way aloft, and while peering ahead through the horizontal vacancy between the main-top-sail and top-gallant-sail, he raised a gull-like cry in the air. "There she blows! there she blows!
The crew was busy bending the sails; the topman, who had to take the upper corner of the main-top-sail on the starboard, lost his balance; he was seen to waver; the multitude thronging the Arsenal quay uttered a cry; the man's head overbalanced his body; the man fell around the yard, with his hands outstretched towards the abyss; on his way he seized the footrope, first with one hand, then with the other, and remained hanging from it: the sea lay below him at a dizzy depth; the shock of his fall had imparted to the foot-rope a violent swinging motion; the man swayed back and forth at the end of that rope, like a stone in a sling.
The object I had mistaken for Marble, dead or asleep, was a part of the bunt of the main-top-sail, that had been hauled down over the top-rim, and secured there, either to form a sort of shelter against the breaking seas, or a bed. Whatever may have been the intention of this nest, it no longer had an occupant.
The ship herself had hauled up her main-sail, hauled down all her stay-sails, and lay with her main-top-sail braced sharp aback, with orders to the quarter-master to keep her little off the wind; the object being to leave a little way through the water, in order to prolong the expected interviews.
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