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But it fled, for now a black flag fluttered at the mast-head a long low vessel darted swiftly where the vast ship lay; there came a shrill piping whistle, the clash of cutlasses, fierce ringing oaths, sharp pistol cracks, the thunder of command, and over all the gusty yell of a demoniac chorus, "My name was Robert Kidd, when I sailed."
The man at the mast-head called out that he saw something on the weather bow, which he thought was a boat; soon after, an unknown voice from the jib-boom hailed the ship; the officer of the watch answered; and the voice commanded him to heave to, as Neptune was coming on board.
I guessed, however, what it was, namely, that one of the Russian cruisers was burning an unfortunate coasting vessel. On looking more closely from the mast-head of the flag-ship, I saw the masts and two funnels of a steamer very near to the burning ship. The cruiser was somewhat in shore of the place where I was lying.
Anyway, he did it, and Lakamba accepted at last. Then Willems made a speech to the crowd. Said that on his way to the west the Rajah he meant Patalolo would see the Great White Ruler in Batavia and obtain his protection for Sambir. Meantime, he went on, I, an Orang Blanda and your friend, hoist the flag under the shadow of which there is safety. With that he ran up a Dutch flag to the mast-head.
I saw what he desired. Twenty feet below the truck the foremast ground and crunched against a boss of the cliff. Above the boss was a cleft. He wanted to know if I would dare the leap from the mast-head into the cleft. Sometimes the distance was a scant six feet.
The next day I had the forenoon watch; the weather had lulled unexpectedly nor was there much sea, and the deck was all alive, to take advantage of the fine blink, when the man at the mast-head sang out "Breakers right ahead, sir." "Breakers!" said Mr. Splinter, in great astonishment. "Breakers! why, the man must be mad! I say, Jenkins "
The yellow rays which issued from the fresneled glass light on the mast-head fell full upon the girl's figure and Gregory saw that her eyes were fixed on the dark outlines of the coast. "What do you make of Mascola?" Dickie shook her head. "I don't know," she answered. "He has me guessing right now.
The peak of Montreal mountain has been long visible, and now we rapidly approach the long line of Victoria bridge, the great pride of Canadian engineering. Under this we glide with a gymnast at the mast-head, whose erected feet seem nearly to touch the bridge; and in a short time we round in to the wharf and are ashore in the largest city of Canada.
Invisible hands unfolded and shook out three balls of bunting at the truck of the war-ship's signal boom. They fluttered for awhile, and then spread out to the breeze. The arms of Russia surmounted two lines of symbolic letters. "Quartermaster!" shouted Captain Brandon. "Ay, ay, sir!" rang out a sailor's voice, and the Saigon's number raced a Union Jack to the mast-head.
But this was very far North, be it remembered, where beer agrees well with the constitution; upon the Equator, in our southern fishery, beer would be apt to make the harpooneer sleepy at the mast-head and boozy in his boat; and grievous loss might ensue to Nantucket and New Bedford.
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