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The wind was still blowing more than half a gale from the northward and westward, and the vessel was running before it under the fore staysail and mizzentop-sail, which had been dropped again with the reef points shaken out, making eight knots good, too, at that.
The fear was that the fore-topmast and mizzen-topmast, if not the lower masts, deprived of their support, might go likewise. The wreck was quickly cleared, and the masts got on board. To stand on or to heave to were equally out of the question. It was necessary to put the ship before the wind. The mizzentop-sail was furled, the helm put up, and the ship was to be wore round. Now came the danger.
With startling energy Mr Renshaw had just given the order to furl the fore and mizzentop-sail, to heave the ship to, when there was a loud crash. "Down! down for your lives!" shouted the captain. The main-topmast had been carried away. Masts, and yards, and blocks, and rigging, came hurtling down on deck in one mass of ruin, injuring two or three of our men, and knocking one poor fellow overboard.
The shot could not be followed, and no one knew where they struck. Four had been fired, when a squall succeeded that shut in the chase, and of course the firing was suspended. So severe was this momentary effort of the African gales, hot, drowsy, and deadening as they are, that the Proserpine started her mizzentop-sail sheets, and clewed up her main-course, to save the spar.
All they could set was a close-reefed mizzentop-sail and a fore staysail, which latter was hoisted on a jury-mast rigged forwards in place of the foremast; while the missing rudder was replaced by an ingenious makeshift, the joint handiwork of Mr Meldrum and the carpenter, composed of lengths of a spare hawser and some of the smaller spars, sawn up, lashed together, and then planked over, so as to offer a yielding surface to the sea, and secured under the stern by guys and tackles leading from the quarter galleries, the steering gear being then attached.
"Let go the mizzentop-sail halliards, and man the fore staysail down- haul!" shouted out Captain Dinks the moment Mr Meldrum had spoken; and, the helm being put down at the same time, the ship was again brought head to wind, almost sooner than it has taken to describe the operation.
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