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On the 31st of July but one cask of water remained in each ship, when about midday a seaman at the masthead hailed that he saw the summits of three mountains rising above the horizon. Columbus had before determined to give the name of the Trinity to the first land he should behold, and was struck by the appearance of these three mountains united in one. He therefore called the island La Trinidad.
Ascending as high as the lower masthead, he coolly climbed up on the cross-trees, and, standing there, deftly and rapidly lashed it to the masthead, after which he deliberately descended the rigging again, defiantly shaking his fist at the Aurora as he did so. About ten minutes after the occurrence of this incident there followed another of an infinitely more thrilling and startling character.
The way Mr Ashurst addressed Owen convinced him that he was the person he supposed. "I will take care not to give him any cause of offence, for he is evidently not an amiable person," thought Owen. A few minutes afterwards the look-out at the masthead shouted "A sail on the weather bow!" One of the officers immediately went aloft. On his return the bearings of the stranger were taken.
The harbour gleamed; far away he saw Miss Aagot's little yacht with the shining masthead. He lost himself in this spectacle. Time passed; suddenly he dived into a basement restaurant that had opened up and asked for a sandwich for breakfast. When he emerged a little later there were many people in the streets; it was getting along toward the time for the boys' parade to start.
The wind was freshening rapidly, the Ghost heeling over more and more, and by the time the state-room was ready she was dashing through the water at a lively clip. I had quite forgotten the existence of Leach and Johnson, when suddenly, like a thunderclap, "Boat ho!" came down the open companion-way. It was Smoke's unmistakable voice, crying from the masthead.
The cries of frogs and seabirds, and the little flashes of the fireflies, were silenced and blotted out by the incessant roar and flash of the tremendous mortars that kept up their deadly work. Suddenly in the distance the sky grows red and lurid. "The fort is burning!" cry the men at the guns; but from the masthead comes the response, "No, the fire is on the river. It is another fire-raft."
"Queer that she should have furled all her canvas. ... Can any one see a light aboard? No! And no light on the masthead, either! Look out, Victor!" Now the cutter was alongside; Victor stood waiting on the gunwale, and the next time she rose on the crest of a big wave, he leapt into the rigging of the brig, while the cutter sheered off, tacked, and made for the harbour.
She was still blazing merrily, when another vessel was descried from the masthead, and at 9.30 P.M. of a beautiful moonlight night, a blank shot from the Alabama brought up the smart little brigantine Dunkirk, from New York, for Lisbon, also loaded with grain. A boat was sent on board of her, and her papers handed over to one of the Alabama's officers.
The iron tongue of the bell uttered the summons, as well as the resonant voice of the Muezzin, who to-day did not call the worshippers to devotion from the top of a minaret, but from the masthead of a ship. On both sides of the narrow seagate, thousands of Moslems and Christians thought, hoped and believed, that the Omnipotent One heard them.
After we had been at sea some time we stood away to the westward. One forenoon, a shout from the masthead announced a sail in sight. "Where away?" asked the officer of the watch. "On the weather bow," was the answer. "There are two three four the whole horizon is studded with them," cried the look-out.
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