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"'An' the wind blows fair, an' our helm's a-lee, so it's heave, my mariners, all O!" cried the Imp in his nautical voice. "Dear me!" ejaculated Lady Warburton, staring. "Elizabeth, be so obliging as to tell me what it all means. Why have you dragged these children from their beds to come philandering upon a horrid river at such an hour?"
Helm's a-lee. Tacks and sheets. Mainsail haul." And then the fatal words: "That'll do your mainsail; jump for'ard and haul round your foreyards." To stay a square-rigged ship is an affair of knowledge and swift sight: and a man used to the succinct evolutions of a schooner will always tend to be too hasty with a brig. It was so now.
"Helm's a-lee," responded the men, lifting the coiled-up braces and so on from the pins and throwing them down on the deck all ready for running.
Helm's a-lee. Raise tacks and sheets. Round she was coming like a top. Pilot smoking. Just as he was going to haul the mainsel Somebody tripped against him, and shoved the hot cigar in his eye. He sung out and swore, and there was no mainsel haul. Ship in irons, tide running hard on to the shoal, and before we could clear away for anchoring, bump! there she was hard and fast.
And down the deck, slanted for the moment to forty- five degrees, Jerry slipped and slid, vainly clawing at the smooth surface for a hold. He fetched up against the foot of the mizzenmast, while Captain Van Horn, with the sailor's eye for the coral patch under his bow, gave the order "Hard a-lee!"
Just as he spoke, the French ship tacked, evidently to avoid the shoal, and while she was in stays, we poured in another heavy raking fire which well-nigh crippled her. Meantime the other French ships had gone about. "Helm's a-lee!" I heard shouted out, but as our sails and rigging were by this time terribly cut about, it seemed as if we should be unable to get the ship round.
"'Hard a-lee! came the voice of Kelson, drowned in a crash of thunder which words are powerless to describe, and as the good ship swung round responsive to the touch of her helm, all was again Egyptian darkness, and the wind rushed upon us with the howl and roar of a thousand hungry wild beasts.
After regarding each other, in surprise and admiration, the watermen drew the head-sheet over, put the helm a-lee, without however invading the lap of the Alderman, and the boat became stationary, at the distance of a few rods from the shore.
He took one more glance at the breakers and then gave the word: "Ready about!" followed immediately by the customary "Helm is a-lee!" at the same moment signing to Williams to put the helm down. The wheel, under the influence of a single vigorous impulse from Williams' sinewy arm, went whirling round until it was hard over, when he caught and grasped the spokes and held it there.
Then, keenly watching the behaviour of the ship as she swept up into the wind, he presently signed with his hand, "Hard down!" and cried through his trumpet, "Helm's a-lee!" whereupon the fore and fore staysail sheets were let go and overhauled. Meanwhile a party of men on the poop had dragged the spankerboom as nearly amidships as they could get it.
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