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The constable had slid down the ladder and was fumbling with a key at the padlock. The anchor came aboard and the last gasket was loosed at the same instant that the constable freed the skiff and jumped to the oars. "Peak-halyards!" I commanded my crew, at the same time swinging on to the throat-halyards. Up came the sail on the run. I belayed and ran aft to the tiller. "Stretch her!"
"Hold on! hold on, lads!" he shrieked out; "oh, Murray, help!" It was too late. He was drawn up right over the gunwale, but just as he was going overboard he seized hold of the peak-halyards, where they were belayed to the side, and held on like grim death. The shark tugged and tugged away terribly. He could hold on no longer.
"Get up ze mainsail and break out ze hook!" the Frenchman shouted. "And den tail on to ze Reindeer! No side-lights!" "Come! Cast off those gaskets lively!" 'Frisco Kid ordered. "Now lay on to the peak-halyards there, that rope cast it off the pin. And don't hoist ahead of me. There! Make fast! We 'll stretch it afterwards. Run aft and come in on the main-sheet! Shove the helm up!"
It was not a pleasant morning, but it might certainly have been very much worse in a hundred ways. We ran on for a couple of hours, with our main-boom over the larboard quarter, the tack triced up, and the peak-halyards eased off, for we had no reason to hurry.
He had ordered the helm to be put up; and Watson had seized an axe, waiting his directions to cut away the mainmast, when the throat-halyard block parted, the peak-halyards had already been let go, and the mainsail coming in of itself, the vessel righted in an instant; then, feeling her helm, and the headsail being yet set, she flew off before the squall.
In some way, when Harrison was aloft, the sheet jammed in the block through which it runs at the end of the gaff. As I understood it, there were two ways of getting it cleared, first, by lowering the foresail, which was comparatively easy and without danger; and second, by climbing out the peak-halyards to the end of the gaff itself, an exceedingly hazardous performance.
As he read, an old master's-mate, standing at the peak-halyards, begins pulling at the ropes. The British ensign, carried through the ship's anonymous days, comes fluttering down, and in its place runs up the white naval ensign of the Confederacy, with the starry Southern cross in the red field of the corner. Then the reading is ended. Boom! goes the starboard forecastle-gun.
There is not much gear to a seventy-ton schooner with a stump-foremast, but Long Jack had a gift of expression. When he wished to draw Harvey's attention to the peak-halyards, he dug his knuckles into the back of the boy's neck and kept him at gaze for half a minute.
There was no hook on board large enough to secure him, so another plan was adopted by Needham's suggestion. The bonetta was secured to a small line, while with the end of the peak-halyards a running bowline-knot was formed and placed over it, or rather round it.
The first tremendous blast of the hurricane had caught the sail full, and about capsized the boat. But tio Batiste and the Rector scrambled along the almost perpendicular deck to the mast, loosened the peak-halyards and let the yard down. Freed from the pressure of the sail, the Mayflower came back to an even keel with the next wave.
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