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Updated: June 25, 2025
There she lay, a craft of some four hundred tons, water-logged, and motionless as a church. It always gives me great reflection, sir, when I see a noble vessel brought to such a strait; for one may liken her to a man who has been docked of his fins, and who is getting to be good for little else than to be set upon a cat-head to look out for squalls." "The ship was then deserted?"
We were by this time close to the chase, on board which all was dark and silent as the grave. "Stand by to heave the grapplings, fore and aft. Now port your helm, my man Jones, isn't it? That's right, hard-a-port and run her alongside. This way, lads, our cat-head is your best chance.
So we set her foresail with the tack at the cat-head, and lashed her helm a little to starboard, to answer her head-sail, and so set her agoing, with neither cat or dog in her; and it was not above two hours before we saw her run right ashore upon the coast, a little beyond the Cape Comorin; and away we went round about Ceylon, for the coast of Coromandel.
It took me but a few seconds to make my way out on deck, where I found the watch, under the supervision of the second mate, as I presumed, busily engaged in the operation of washing decks, while the fresh, invigorating trade-wind, sweeping in over the port cat-head, hummed and drummed with an exhilarating note through the taut weather rigging and into the hollows of the straining canvas overhead.
Next came an order to 'lay aloft and shake out the topsail'; but happily in this order I was not included, but was, instead, directed to 'lend a hand to get the anchor aboard, which operation was quickly accomplished, and the heavy mass of crooked iron which had held the ship firmly in the harbor was soon fastened in its proper place on the bow, to what is called a 'cat-head. By the time this was done, every sail was set, and we were flying before the wind out into the great ocean.
Each floor had a door opening into the air under a cat-head, from which a chain dangled for hoisting the sacks. When Elizabeth's head rose through the trap she perceived that the upper door was open, and that her stepfather and Farfrae stood just within it in conversation, Farfrae being nearest the dizzy edge, and Henchard a little way behind.
"There she is, just over the weather cat-head!" exclaimed Ned, as he placed himself in line with the mate. "All right! I see her," responded the mate, as he at length caught sight of the small purple-grey spot on the south-western horizon, and he sauntered back to his seat. At this moment Captain Blyth made his appearance on the poop.
As for the brig, she was little better than a wreck, for as she drove past us we saw that her rudder was gone, her bulwarks carried away on both sides, from cat-head to taffrail, and her decks swept of everything that was movable.
"But what she wants out there, I can't say." To the surprise of Ada, he walked forward, and called his mate to his side. "Here, Mr Timmins, just tell me what you think of that chap out there, over the weather cat-head," he said, giving his officer the glass. The mate took the instrument, and looked as he was directed.
In another moment she swept magnificently across our stern, so closely that a bold leap would have carried a man from her weather cat-head down upon our deck; and as she did so we became aware of sundry tanned and bearded faces, some of which seemed familiar to me, peering curiously down upon us through her open half-ports.
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