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"Poor fellow!" murmured Jones, and then called out, "Give it to them, lads, they have lost their maintopmast." A cheer was the answer. But the matter must be ended at once.
And it seemed to the boy that, as she ceased, a star dropped out of the sky and poised itself above the fir-tree on her maintopmast; and that the bare mast beneath it put forth branches, while upon every branch, as it spread, a globe of fire dropped from the star, until a gigantic Christmas-tree soared from the deck away up to heaven.
After two hours the 'Héros'' sails were in rags, all her running rigging cut, and she could no longer steer. The 'Illustre' had lost her mizzen-mast and maintopmast." In this disorder such gaps existed as to offer a great opportunity to a more active opponent. "Had the enemy tacked now," wrote the chief-of-staff in his journal, "we would have been cut off and probably destroyed."
From the deck to the truck of the maintopmast is something over a hundred feet, while the foremast with its topmast is eight or ten feet shorter. I am giving these details so that the size of this little floating world which holds twenty-two men may be appreciated.
But the Nautilus was again too quick for her, and in a few minutes was once more hard in chase and sending shot after shot, till one better directed than the rest went through her maintopmast. The crew of the Nautilus sent up a tremendous cheer as the great spar came down with its gaff sail, leaving the schooner for the time like a bird with a broken wing.
Each had eighteen guns, nine to a broadside, but while the sloop had only 92 men and measured only 384 tons, the brig had 135 men and measured 434 tons. The Frolic, on the night of the 17th of October, had been overtaken by a most violent gale of wind, in which she carried away her mainyard, lost her topsails, and sprung her maintopmast.
Even to the people on shore the moment and the spectacle were sublime and tremendous beyond description. The vessel and the people on board disappeared for a time from their sight under jets and cascades of surf. The spray rose in a dense sheet as high as the maintopmast would have been had it stood upright.
"Here, here," he continued, speaking in a lower tone, as if fearful of being overheard, "here she lies, sir, more to port; look into the streak of clear sky above the marsh, on the starboard hand of the wood, there; that long black line is her maintopmast; I know it by the rake; and there is her night-pennant fluttering about that bright star; ay, ay, sir, there go our own stars aloft yet, dancing among the stars in the heavens!
And it did; for we returned at one o'clock, rested and strengthened by a hearty dinner. In less than an hour I had the maintopmast on deck and was constructing the shears. Lashing the two topmasts together, and making allowance for their unequal length, at the point of intersection I attached the double block of the main throat- halyards.
Her starboard bow had been cut right through up to the head of the foremast, which had been carried away completely, with all its spars and rigging, as well as the bowsprit and maintopmast.
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