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"Send a boat on board immediately." "Ay, ay, sir." "Turn the hands up? Shorten sail!" The top-gallant and courses of the frigate were taken in, and the mainsail hove to the mast. "Signalman, whereabouts is that other schooner now?" "The schooner, sir?
"What is that lashed to the rigging on her port beam?" Every glass was instantly directed to the point he had indicated. "It's a man, sir," said the signalman, noticing the object on its now being pointed out to him, very wise after the event, as most of us are disposed to be in everyday life. "I think I can see him move, sir."
The man at the instrument tore off the duplicate of the strip and pasted it on the bulletin, touched the button of an electric bell and handed the message to the signalman who answered the ring.
We use the word attempting advisedly, because our signalman had not the ghost of a chance to sit down, as ordinary mortals do, and take his dinner with any degree of certainty. He took it as it were, disjointedly in the midst of alarms.
Armed with a crowbar, the signalman made a dash at the 'spirit, but was unable to strike down the ghost, which hovered about our shed till half-past two. It was moonlight, and we saw it plainly. There was no imagination on our part. We three cleaners climbed up the engine, and hid on the roof of the engine, lying there till morning at our wit's end. The next night it came at half-past one.
The signalman was at his post, and had fixed his eye on the man overboard, as his duty was; but his mess-mate was in the stove boat, and he had cast one anxious look down to see if he was saved, and, sad to relate, in that one moment he had lost sight of Staines; the sudden darkness there was no twilight confused him more, and the ship had increased her drift.
It need hardly be said after this, that, on our presently reaching the favourite hostelry of our guide, the signalman, we stood treat to all the darkeys; and then, having had enough of their somewhat too marked attentions, we parted company, with the most friendly feelings on both sides.
Is it the inventor of the locomotive, or the workman of Newcastle, who suggested replacing the stones formerly laid under the rails by wooden sleepers, as the stones, for want of elasticity, caused the trains to derail? Is it the engineer on the locomotive? The signalman who stops the trains, or lets them pass by? The switchman who transfers a train from one line to another?
"Ha, they're sending up another hoist now, and we'll soon know all about it. What's that now, signalman?"
The "Flying Dutchman" came on in its wonted wild fashion, and for a few seconds Gertie saw her father's bronzed and stern face as he looked straight ahead with his hand on the regulator. John Marrot cast one professional glance up, and gave a professional wave of his right hand to the signalman.
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