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Courtenay very smartly followed suit in the matter of showing his colours, tacking at the same time and edging down toward us. This evidently shook the nerves of our unwelcome neighbour somewhat; he seemed to think two to one rather long odds, for he immediately bore away far enough to show us his gaff-end clear of his topsail, when he at once ran up the stars and stripes.
Then, of a sudden, Le Marchant jerked a cry, and I saw what he saw the topsail of a schooner rising white in the sun above the sky-line, and to our hearts there was menace in the very look of it. We looked round at Sercq, at the cracks in the headlands, and the green slopes smiling in the sunshine, and the white tongues of the waves as they leaped up the cliffs. "Five miles!" gasped Le Marchant.
I gained some credit for my performance, though there are people, I own, who do not believe in the fact, which is not surprising, as it isn't every day in the week that a ship recovers a topsail which has been blown away in a gale of wind."
"I told Howe not to carry the end of the buntline too far. It was wound three times around the topsail sheet." "Was that what you meant?" asked Robinson, suspiciously. "Don't you see that buntline?" replied Perth. "It is fouled in the sheet, and he was pulling it through farther, so as to snarl it up still worse."
In this way we were almost always able to raise the cry of "Haul out to leeward" before them, and having knotted our points, would slide down the shrouds and back-stays, and sing out at the topsail halyards to let it be known that we were ahead of them. Reefing is the most exciting part of a sailor's duty.
I was soon at the mast-head, and in two minutes returned, and reported her to be a large topsail schooner, heading north-north-east with the wind about south-east. "I can't help thinking, sir, from her look, that this is the same craft that was lying off New Orleans two days ago," I added, touching my hat to the captain.
Sweers and I stood, first of all, to take a view of the barque for a barque she was: her topgallantmasts down, but her topsail and lower yards across, sails bent, all gear rove, and everything right so far as we could see, saving that her flying jib-boom was gone. There was no need to look long at her to know that she hadn't been one of Franklin's ships.
Wind southerly: course South 62 degrees East; distance 14 miles; latitude 51 degrees 26 minutes South, longitude 61 degrees 59 minutes West. Sunday, 8th. Wind and weather both Variable, but for the most part little wind. P.M. loosed the Reef out of the Foresail and 2 Reefs out of Each Topsail. A.M. got Top gallant Yards aCross and loosed all the Reefs out. Soundings from 80 to 75 fathoms.
Winds Southerly, a hard gale, with heavy squalls, attended with Showers of rain and a great Sea from the same Quarter. At 3 p.m. Close reeft the Topsails, handed the Main and Mizen Topsail, and got down Top Gallant Yards.
In a few minutes the topsail yards were manned, and all three of the topsails furled at once. From the fore top-gallant yard, the men slid down the stay to furl the jib, and from the mizzen top-gallant yard, by the stay, into the main-top, and thence to the yard; and the men on the topsail yards came down the lifts to the yard-arms of the courses.
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