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The common mariners profited by the circumstance, and, darting past the mounting flame along the bulwarks, they gained the top-gallant-forecastle, which though heated was yet untouched. The Skimmer glanced an eye about him, and seizing Seadrift by the waist, as if the mimic seaman had been a child, he pushed forward between the ridge-ropes.
As, two years before, I had spent a week in trying to beat through the Roost of Sumburgh under double-reefed trysails, I was at home in the weather; and guessing we were in for it, sent down the topmasts, stowed the boats on board, handed the foresail, rove the ridge-ropes, and reefed all down.
I can see the John at this moment, near fifty years after I first laid eyes on her, as she then appeared. She was not bright-sided, but had a narrow, cream-coloured streak, broken into ports. She was a straight, black-looking craft, with a handsome billet, low, thin bulwarks, and waistcloths secured to ridge-ropes.
Still, sail was crowded on the royal cruiser; and, long ere the period when Ludlow threw himself in his clothes between the ridge-ropes of the quarter-deck, the vessel had gained the broadest part of the Sound, and was already approaching the islands that form the 'Race. Throughout the whole of that long and anxious day, the young sailor had held no communication with the inmates of the cabin.
Sail after sail fell upon the deck, and, in an incredibly short space of time, the whole of the fore-mast was naked to its spars and rigging. In the mean time, Ludlow, assisted by the Alderman and François, had not been idle below. Passing forward between the empty ridge-ropes, lanyard after lanyard parted under the blows of their little boarding-axes.
Most of the officers of the Carnatic were on her poop, as she came sweeping up heavily, casting her shadow on the Plantagenet's decks. Captain Parker himself was standing near the ridge-ropes, his head uncovered, and the grey hairs floating in the breeze.
"Give it them!" he occasionally cried, in a voice that might be heard amid the bellowing of the cannon; "never mind their cordage, my lads; drive home their bolts, and make your marks below their ridge-ropes." In the mean time the Englishman played a manful game.
"Give way, men!" he again shouted, so clear and steady, as to be heard above the cries and execrations of the fight. "Into the wings; down, between the guns down to your covers!" The English disappeared, as if by magic. Some leaped upon the ridge-ropes, others sought the protection of the guns, and many went through the hatches. At that moment Ludlow made his most desperate effort.
While the little and low brigantine began to labor and roll, the Coquette rode the element with buoyancy, and consequently with less resistance from the water. Twenty minutes, during which the force of the wind was but little lessened, brought the cruiser so near the chase, as to enable her crew to distinguish most of the smaller objects that were visible above her ridge-ropes.
Long before the sun had reached the meridian, I had a stout little platform, that was quite eighteen inches above the water, and which was surrounded by a species of low ridge-ropes, so placed as to keep articles from readily tumbling off it. The next measure was to cut all the sails from the yards, and to cut loose all the rigging and iron that did not serve to keep the wreck together.
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