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At this time we wore the Ship, hauld up the Topsail, and brought her too with her head to the North-West under a Reefed Mainsail, but this was scarcely done before the Main Tack gave way and we were glad to take in the Mainsail and lay too under the Mizen staysail and Ballanced Mizen, after which we reefd the Foresail and furl'd both it and the Mainsail.
"Old Kinross is setting that fisherman's staysail," he remarked quietly. "No!" she cried incredulously, swiftly looking, then running for the telescope. She regarded the manoeuvre steadily through the glass, and Sheldon, watching her face, could see that the skipper was not making a success of it. She finally lowered the glass with a groan.
"Because I'm coming aboard you for it," was the reply. He hauled in the main-sheet, lashed the tiller, went quietly forward without awakening his native seamen, and put the staysail to windward.
"Hard a-lee!" would come the command, and some men would go down into the smother of the lee rail and haul in or slack away sheets, while others at the mastheads would shift top- and staysail tacks. Her head would swing, there would be a minute of thrashing and roaring of gear, and the gale would leap into her sails and bend her down on her side again. Then away she would go.
Forward, the two topsails and fore topmast staysail were holding, but between the flashes the upper canvas melted away like a puff of steam, the ragged ends flying and thrashing into long ribbons to leeward. Three men were on the yard when I looked at first, and then, almost instantly afterward, the yard was bare.
But under this canvas I soon found that she griped rather badly; that is to say, she required an undue amount of weather helm to hold her straight to her course. We therefore loosed and set the fore-topmast staysail, after which she not only practically steered herself, but further increased her speed to not far short of five knots.
All they could set was a close-reefed mizzentop-sail and a fore staysail, which latter was hoisted on a jury-mast rigged forwards in place of the foremast; while the missing rudder was replaced by an ingenious makeshift, the joint handiwork of Mr Meldrum and the carpenter, composed of lengths of a spare hawser and some of the smaller spars, sawn up, lashed together, and then planked over, so as to offer a yielding surface to the sea, and secured under the stern by guys and tackles leading from the quarter galleries, the steering gear being then attached.
"Yes, dunnage and money," answered Donkin, raising his voice a little; "I got nothink. No clothes, no bed. A bandy-legged little Hirish chap 'ere 'as give me a blanket. Think I'll go an' sleep in the fore topmast staysail to-night." He went on deck trailing behind his back a corner of the blanket. Singleton, without a glance, moved slightly aside to let him pass.
Then, with a final sigh the breeze died away altogether, the topsails hung limp and dew-saturated from the yards, the fore topmast staysail sheet drooped amidships, and the Mercury swung broadside-on to the scarcely perceptible swell. Abandoning the now useless wheel, I walked forward to the skylight in which the cabin lamp, turned low, burned dimly and had a look at the barometer.
"Lay out!" repeated the midshipmen in the tops; and the seamen ran out on the foot-ropes to their several stations for loosing sail. At the same time, the forecastle hands were loosing the fore-topmast staysail, jib, and flying jib, and the after-guard, or quarter-deck hands, were clearing away the spanker.
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