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He did not understand enough about the vagaries of horses and wagons to appreciate the risk. One rein still hung over the dasher. "Only one jib down-haul left of all the riggin'," he groaned, and then grabbed it and surged on it. The horse swung out of the road, the wagon careering wildly on two wheels.
This was no agreeable or safe duty, yet it must be done. Another one must go: I was near the mate, and sprang forward, threw the down-haul over the windlass, and jumped between the knight-heads out upon the bowsprit.
We belayed the fore down-haul; but the sail was split, and we hauled down the yard, and got the sail into the ship, and unbound all the things clear of it. It was a very fierce storm; the sea broke strange and dangerous. We hauled off the laniard of the whipstaff, and helped the man at the helm.
I now jumped to the jib-halyards and down-haul, getting that sail reduced; then I half-brailed the spanker; this was done lest my hold on the yard should give way. I can say, that up to this instant, I had not even looked for Marble. So intense had been my apprehensions of missing the wreck, that I thought of nothing else, could see nothing else.
The old darky, who had been gently soothed into slumber by the friction of the main sheet that served as a pillow, raised his grizzly head, gave one look in the direction indicated, and sprang to his feet, shouting wildly, "On deck der! man yo' wedder fo' an' main, lee clew garnets an' buntlines, topsail halyards an' down-hauls, jib down-haul, let go an' haul!" his voice fairly rising in a shriek that, with the rattling of the jib as it came down, might have been heard a mile away.
I jumped to attend to the painter just as Clancy's voice broke in from above: "Swing her off about two points, ease your main sheet and keep an eye on that light to looard. Off, off that's good hold her and Joe, slack stays'l and then foretops'l halyards. Be ready to let go balloon halyards and stand by down-haul. Look alive."
The instant the gun was discharged, the jibs were run up, and the "rodes" thrown overboard. Some of the yachts, however, were unfortunate, and did not obtain a good start. In one the jib down-haul fouled, and another ran over her cable, and swamped her tender.
Their dreams are of cringles and reef-tackles, of knots, splices, grummets, and dead-eyes. They can tell the length, to a fathom, of every rope in the boatswain's warrant, from the flying jib down-haul to the spanker-sheet; and the height of every spar, from the main-top-gallant truck to the heel of the lower mast.
"You can put down what's true," he said, continuing a topic that they had been pursuing, "that boxin' the compass and knowin' a jib down-haul from a pound of saleratus ain't all there is to a master mariner's business, not by a blamed sight.
"Before you go to spreadin' sail, marm," said the Cap'n, stoutly, "you'd better be sure that you ain't got holt of the down-haul instead of the toppin'-lift." "Talk United States, Cap'n Sproul," snapped Miss Nile. "You've had your money in this pit of perdition here, you and Hiram Look, the two of you.
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