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But when the butt of the topmast was level with the rail, everything came to a standstill. "I might have known it," I said impatiently. "Now we have to do it all over again." "Why not fasten the tackle part way down the mast?" Maud suggested. "It's what I should have done at first," I answered, hugely disgusted with myself.
In a minute Thompson made his appearance on deck, and steadying himself by the weather topmast backstay, fixed his leaden eyes upon the land on the quarter. "All right younker, that's the head, sure enough;" then turning his face to the wind, which lifted up his grey curling locks, and bore them out horizontally from his fur cap, "and it's a devil of a gale, sure enough.
The new, strong sails, which we had up off Cape Horn, were to be sent down, and the old set, which were still serviceable in fine weather, to be bent in their place; all the rigging to be set up, fore and aft; the masts stayed; the standing rigging to be tarred down; lower and topmast rigging to be rattled down, fore and aft; the ship scraped inside and out, and painted; decks varnished; new and neat knots, seizings and coverings, to be fitted; and every part put in order, to look well to the owner's eye, and to all critics, on coming into Boston.
What they held on with I don't know, and they needed to hold on as the Minota lifted, rolled, and pounded on the coral. The bushmen clung in the rigging, too witless to watch out for the topmast.
Catching hold of the topmast shrouds, we began to mount. We got up at length, and crawled out on the yard, holding on tightly by the ropes which seemed most secure. Finding that it was not so terrible as I had supposed, I crawled out to the very end of the yard, where I clung on, in spite of the fearful way in which it moved about.
Whatever it may have been, it seemed to afford the hearers satisfaction, for they smiled and nodded approval from time to time, as the story was being told; and when at length it was ended they all came aft and, while one hand hauled down the ensign and stowed it away, another stationed himself at the wheel, and the remainder tailed on to the braces, swung the headyards, boarded the foretack, and trimmed the jib and staysail sheets, getting way upon the ship and bringing her to her former course; after which, without waiting for any order from me, they set the port topgallant, topmast, and lower studding-sails.
Troude, a French authority, says that at that time nearly all the French had doubled The Saintes, that is, had got to windward of them, and it looked as though de Grasse might succeed in throwing off his pursuer. Unluckily, two ships, the Magnanime, 74, and the Zélé, 74, the latter of which had lost her main topmast, were several miles to leeward of the French main body.
Down went the mizzen topmast, in went the stern-windows and quarter-galleries; and as the smoke cleared away, the gorgeous painting of the Madre Dolorosa, with her heart full of seven swords, which, in a gilded frame, bedizened the Spanish stern, was shivered in splinters; while, most glorious of all, the golden flag of Spain, which the last moment flaunted above their heads, hung trailing in the water.
We were not very long in getting our preventers rigged, after which we not only set our royal and flying-jib, but also shifted our gaff-topsail, hauling down Number 3, a jib-headed affair, and setting Number 2 in its place, a sail nearly twice as big as the other, with its lofty, tapering head laced to a yard very nearly as long as the topmast.
Some, indeed, looked as though they thought the ``old man'' was mad, but no one said a word. We had had a new topmast studding-sail made with a reef in it, a thing hardly ever heard of, and which the sailors had ridiculed a good deal, saying that when it was time to reef a studding-sail it was time to take it in.
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