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Men stood on the bulwarks, and waved their caps frantically to the schooner. Others could be seen, by the aid of a glass, casting spars, hen coops, and other articles overboard, and jumping into the water after them; and soon the sea around the wreck was dotted with heads and floating fragments, while the wreckage of the mainmast was clustered with men.
You behold another phase of his passion, a fury bejewelled with stars, mayhap bearing the crescent of the moon on its brow, shaking the last vestiges of its torn cloud-mantle in inky-black squalls, with hail and sleet descending like showers of crystals and pearls, bounding off the spars, drumming on the sails, pattering on the oilskin coats, whitening the decks of homeward-bound ships.
The boat of Ludlow had not gone fifty fathoms, before he was perfectly conscious of the inutility of a chase; for the obscurity of the night was so great, as to render the spars of his own ship nearly indistinct, even at that short distance.
That was a little model of the brig Industry, about three inches long. The hull of the model was cut out of ebony, and the masts and spars were little ebony sticks stuck in, and the sails were of ivory, scraped thin, and the ropes were silk thread. And the sails were bulging, as if the wind was filling them and making them stand out from the yards.
In his youth before his great sorrow came to him he had but little trouble from this subcharacter. Of all the men in Lerwick, he knew best the king stories and the tellings-up of the ancients; and when the boats with bare spars rocked idly on the summer seas waiting for the shoal, or the men and women were gathered together to pass the long winter nights, Liot was eagerly sought after.
Several of these, which were likewise eight fathoms broad, were moored with anchors and cables, at the distance of a stones throw from the caravels. Likewise, to prevent the caravels from being overlooked by the floating castles, one Peter Raphael built certain turrets on the decks of the caravels of spars set upright, in each of which seven or eight men had room to handle their arms.
This morning, while heaving up the anchor, a boat came off from the schooner Edward Burley of Bevaley, requesting assistance, as her spars had been shivered by lightning. Soon after, the commandant of the fort came on board, in a large and handsome canoe, paddled by ten or twelve natives.
"If you intend boarding us, you had better do so by way of our fore-rigging, or you may get a nasty fall; we are very much littered up here abaft with spars and so on." "Ah, thank you very much; I will take your advice," was the reply. George saw the man motion with his arm, and the brig's course was altered sufficiently to put her alongside with her gangway even with the Aurora's fore-mast.
The rigging lived. The mast-heads, like the tops of tall palms, were outspreadingly tufted with arms and legs. Clinging to a spar with one hand, some reached forth the other with impatient wavings; others, shading their eyes from the vivid sunlight, sat far out on the rocking yards; all the spars in full bearing of mortals, ready and ripe for their fate.
The sea was calm and the tide very high, as there had been a new moon but two days before. A whole hour at least would elapse before the hull of the brig could emerge from the water of the channel. Ayrton and Pencroft were able to fasten the masts and spars by means of ropes, the ends of which were carried to the beach.
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