United States or Algeria ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Again it was clew up and haul down, reef and furl, until we had got her down to close-reefed topsails, double-reefed trysail, and reefed forespenser. Snow, hail, and sleet were driving upon us most of the night, and the sea was breaking over the bows and covering the forward part of the little vessel; but as she would lay her course the captain refused to heave her to. Saturday, Nov. 8th.
The mainsail was stowed and the cover put on, the foresail hauled down and unbent, and the trysail bent, reefed, and stowed, to be set or not, as circumstances might require. As it turned out, it was only a thunderstorm, but it was a regular tropical one whilst it lasted.
"Hard a-port! flatten in forward! brail up the trysail, my men! Be smart!" cried Kloots, as from the wind's chopping round to the northward and westward, the ship was taken aback, and careened low before it. The rain now came down in torrents, and it was so dark that it was with difficulty they could perceive each other on the deck.
Trysail assured a young, laughing, careless midshipman, who even at that moment could enjoy an uproar, that he had seldom heard a prettier piece of sea-eloquence than that which had just fallen from the captain; it being both 'neat and gentleman-like. "Sir, it is A charge too heavy for my strength; but yet We'll strive to bear it for your worthy sake, To the extreme edge of hazard."
I hauled in the weather fore-sheet until it was just in the wake of the mast, and our little barkie was then left to take care of herself whilst we got the trysail bent and set. This done, we filled away again upon our course, with reduced speed, it is true, but very comfortably indeed.
As it was, the fore trysail split with the report of a cannon, and the main-topsail, unable to stand the enormous strain, was torn from top to bottom. To make things more cheerful, the clouds, in their sport, hurled blinding slanting sheets of water at us; for it would be an error to say that rain fell.
The look of Ludlow through the glass was long, attentive, and grave. "We are weak-handed to deal with a stranger;" he said, when he returned the instrument to Trysail, "You see he has nothing but his top-sails set, a show of canvas that would satisfy no trader, in a breeze like this!" The master was silent, but his look was even longer and more critical than that of his captain.
Trysail profited by the pause, to address his followers: "This is an expedition in boats," commenced the accurate and circumstantial master, "made in smooth water, with little, or one may say no wind, in the month of June, and on the coast of North America.
Her topsails and mainsail were furled, and the yards pointed to the wind; she had no sail set, but a close-reefed foresail, a storm staysail, and trysail abaft. She made little way through the water, but apparently neared them fast, driven down by the force of the gale. Each minute she was plainer to the view.
In this they succeeded: for the second or third shot cut through the trysail tack and brought the sail down with a run; and almost at the same moment the boarders overpowered Dan'l and bore him down on deck, where they beat him silly with the flat of their cutlasses and so passed on to drive the rest of the lugger's crew, that were running below in a panic.
Word Of The Day