United States or Western Sahara ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
And when the cat-tackle-fall was strung along, and all hands cook, steward, and all laid hold, to cat the anchor, instead of the lively song of ``Cheerly, men! in which all hands join in the chorus, we pulled a long, heavy, silent pull, and, as sailors say a song is as good as ten men, the anchor came to the cat-head pretty slowly. ``Give us `Cheerly! said the mate; but there was no ``cheerly'' for us, and we did without it.
"Over her starn!" he cried. "There's a fellow getting down from the cat-head to run aft. Stop, stop!" he shouted involuntarily. "There's an awful wave on your quarter." His voice was swallowed in the roaring of the storm. I fancied I could distinguish a dark something shoot from the bows towards the stern. But the huge wave fell upon the wreck.
I was to the wheel and knew the second the anchor was clear of the bottom by the way she leaped under me. "Don't stop to cat-head that anchor," I calls, "but cut her hawser."
The watch were busily engaged in swabbing the deck subsequent to a vigorous treatment with the holystone; the freshly-polished brasswork and the guns flashed like gold in the brilliant morning sunlight; the white canvas swelled and sank gently, as the schooner curtsied upon the almost imperceptible heaving of the swell; everything looked fresh and bright and cheerful, and a thin wreath of smoke that floated lazily out of the galley funnel and away over the lee cat-head to the melody of a rollicking sea-ditty chanted by the cook, as he busied himself with the preparation of breakfast, imparted that sense of homeliness and light-hearted happiness which seemed to be all that was required to satisfactorily complete the picture.
At that moment, the sluices of the cloud opened, and a torrent of rain mingled in the uproar, and added to the confusion. Nothing was now visible but the lines of the falling water, and the sheet of white foam through which the ship was glancing. "Here is the land, Sir!" bellowed Trysail, from a cat-head, where he stood resembling some venerable sea-god, dripping with his native element.
"Watch! ho! watch!" sings out the man on the spritsail yard, and the heavy lead drops into the water. "Watch! ho! watch!" bawls the man on the cat-head, as the last fake of the coil drops from his hand, and "Watch! ho! watch!" is shouted by each one as the line falls from his hold; until it comes to the mate, who tends the lead, and has the line in coils on the quarter-deck.
He contented himself, however, with placing five of the sharpest-sighted men on the lookout; namely, one on the flying-jibboom-end, one on each cat-head, and one on each of the fore- yardarms.
It was still cloudy; and, low down on the horizon and about two points on the weather bow, he noticed that the clouds were lighter and brighter in tint than anywhere else. "Look, Bowen," he exclaimed, "do you see that peculiar-looking cloud away there on the horizon, just over our cat-head? What is the meaning of it?"
Marble came on the forecastle, just as our cat-head was abreast of "The Lady's" forward-rigging. Less than a minute was required to take us so far forward, and that minute was one of great confusion among the French. As soon as Marble got on the forecastle, he made a signal, the ensign was run up, and the order was given to fire.
And last, though not least, she was a superb sea-boat, and dry as a bone save for the spray which flew in over her weather cat-head notwithstanding her extraordinary speed.
Word Of The Day