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At this instant the lad on the spritsail yard sung out quick and suddenly, "A shark, a shark!" And the monster, like a silver pillar, suddenly shot up perpendicularly from out the dark green depths of the sleeping pool, with the waters sparkling and hissing around him, as if he had been a sea demon rushing on his prey.
The reckless beggars, too, were so busy looking out in the direction of the stranded steamer for which they were making, that somehow or other they did not catch sight of us until they were nearly within easy range of our six-inch breechloaders; the leading dhow, which was what the Arabs call a `batilla, and carried two large lugs or lateen sails on wide yards, besides a sort of square jib forwards, rigged out on a bowsprit like a spritsail boom, caught sight of us as we luffed up to let fly at her.
The clew-line gave way at the first pull; the cleat to which the halyards were belayed was wrenched off, and the sail blew round the spritsail yard and head guys, which gave us a bad job to get it in. A half-hour served to clear all away, and she was suffered to drive on with her topmast studding-sail set, it being as much as she could stagger under.
Charley had barely time to luff into the wind and run up to them. I ran forward and tossed them a line with orders to make it fast. One of the Italians took a turn with it over a cleat, while I hastened to lower our big spritsail. This accomplished, the salmon boat dropped astern, dragging heavily on the skiff.
The clewline gave way at the first pull; the cleat to which the halyards were belayed was wrenched off, and the sail blew round the spritsail yards and head guys, which gave us a bad job to get it in. A half hour served to clear all away, and she was suffered to drive on with her topmast studding-sail set, it being as much as she could stagger under.
Two more ships, being driven from their anchors, were run out of the Roads to sea, at all adventures, and that with not a mast standing. The light ships fared the best, as not so much labouring in the sea; but two or three of them drove, and came close by us, running away with only their spritsail out before the wind.
Agatha could scarcely hear him, but when she asked how far it was he nodded as if he understood. "Three or four miles! Not much sweep for the wind, but it will raise a nasty sea before we get there." Gazing at the driving clouds that blotted out the forest, she tried to ask if he could find the river, but just then the canoe rolled and the little spritsail swelled like a balloon.
Friar John, who soon perceived it, was inquiring of him whence should come this unusual sadness; when the master, whose watch it was, observing the fluttering of the ancient above the poop, and seeing that it began to overcast, judged that we should have wind; therefore he bid the boatswain call all hands upon deck, officers, sailors, foremast-men, swabbers, and cabin-boys, and even the passengers; made them first settle their topsails, take in their spritsail; then he cried, In with your topsails, lower the foresail, tallow under parrels, braid up close all them sails, strike your topmasts to the cap, make all sure with your sheeps-feet, lash your guns fast.
But that little craft, her big spinnaker filled by the southeast trade, was making a good race of it. Cape Martin, the southeasternmost point of Nuku-hiva, was abeam, and Comptroller Bay was opening up as we fled past its wide entrance, where Sail Rock, for all the world like the spritsail of a Columbia River salmon-boat, was making brave weather of it in the smashing southeast swell.
All that day and through the night that followed the schooner drove, rolling and plunging before the seas, into the north-east, to the pulling of the spritsail. I made several excursions into the fore-hold, but never could hear the sound of water in the vessel.
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