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Then the final splice was made, and the two women of the Burnside were given the privilege of cutting the slip-ropes that held the cable on the ship. It had already been lowered over the bows, and only these ropes held it in place.
At the moment the dead man, released from slip-ropes, disappeared without a ripple before the eyes of his shipmates, the bright flash and the heavy report of the brig's bow gun were succeeded by the muttering echoes of the encircling shores and by the loud cries of sea birds that, wheeling in clouds, seemed to scream after the departing seaman a wild and eternal good-bye.
The heavy chain cables to be hauled and pulled about the decks with bare hands; wet hawsers, slip-ropes, and buoy-ropes to be hauled aboard, dripping in water, which is running up your sleeves, and freezing; clearing hawse under the bows; getting under weigh and coming-to, at all hours of the night and day, and a constant look-out for rocks and sands and turns of tides; these are some of the disagreeables of such a navigation to a common sailor.
We beat up against a strong head wind, under reefed top-sails, as far as San Juan, where we came to anchor nearly three miles from the shore, with slip-ropes on our cables, in the old south-easter style of last winter. On the passage up, we had an old sea captain on board, who had married and settled in California, and had not been on salt water for more than fifteen years.
Here everything was pretty much as we left it the large bay without a vessel in it; the surf roaring and rolling in upon the beach; the white mission; the dark town and the high, treeless mountains. Here, too, we had our south-easter tacks aboard again, slip-ropes, buoy-ropes, sails furled with reefs in them, and rope-yarns for gaskets.
As soon as we got on board, the boats were hoisted up, the sails loosed, the windlass manned, the slip-ropes and gear cast off; and after about twenty minutes of heaving at the windlass, making sail, and bracing yards, we were well under way, and going with a fair wind up the coast to Monterey.
We beat up against a strong head wind, under reefed topsails, as far as San Juan, where we came to anchor nearly three miles from the shore, with slip-ropes on our cables, in the old southeaster style of last winter. On the passage up, we had an old sea-captain on board, who had married and settled in California, and had not been on salt water for more than fifteen years.
As soon as we got on board, the boats were hoisted up, the sails loosed, the windlass manned, the slip-ropes and gear cast off; and after about twenty minutes of heaving at the windlass, making sail, and bracing yards, we were well under weigh, and going with a fair wind up the coast to Monterey.
The heavy chain cables to be hauled and pulled about decks with bare hands; wet hawsers, slip-ropes, and buoy-ropes to be hauled aboard, dripping in water, which is running up your sleeves, and freezing; clearing hawse under the bows; getting under way and coming-to at all hours of the night and day, and a constant lookout for rocks and sands and turns of tides, these are some of the disagreeables of such a navigation to a common sailor.
Here everything was pretty much as we left it, the large bay without a vessel in it, the surf roaring and rolling in upon the beach, the white Mission, the dark town, and the high, treeless mountains. Here, too, we had our southeaster tacks aboard again, slip-ropes, buoy-ropes, sails furled with reefs in them, and rope-yarns for gaskets.
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