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Updated: June 8, 2025
The wind soon increasing, blew strong from the E. S. E. with a very heavy sea, and about three o'clock in the morning of the 17th flew suddenly round to the contrary point, blowing most tremendously, and accompanied with rain, thunder and lightning; the Ramillies was taken by the lee, her main-sail thrown back, her main-mast went by the board, and mizen-mast half way up; the fore-top mast fell over the starboard bow, the fore-yard broke in the slings, the tiller snapped in two, and the rudder was nearly torn off.
In vain did an experienced natural philosopher belonging to the fore-top maintain before his face, that in this hypothesis Wooloo was mistaken. Wooloo's opinion remained unchanged for some time.
Take, for instance, the yellow-bellied woodpecker, with its red fore-top and throat, its black and white lines, and its bright eyes, together with its pale yellow shading of back and belly, and how well it would "work in" with the tulip-leaves and flowers! Even its bill and feet harmonize perfectly with the bark of the older twigs.
His station was in the fore-top, and often from there he looked down, with the contempt of a man destined to shine in the midst of dangers, at the peaceful multitude of roofs cut in two by the brown tide of the stream, while scattered on the outskirts of the surrounding plain the factory chimneys rose perpendicular against a grimy sky, each slender like a pencil, and belching out smoke like a volcano.
The sharpest of look-outs was kept ahead, and the seamen were constantly in the fore-top straining their eyes in expectation of catching sight of her white canvas. Every port was narrowly scanned on the chance of her having put in there. When the wind fell, the crew eagerly leapt into the boats to pull ahead.
There was a seaman belonging to the fore-top a mess-mate, though not a top-mate of mine, and no favourite of the Captain's, who, for certain venial transgressions, had been prohibited from going ashore on liberty when the ship's company went.
At the first alarm, Annatoo, however, had escaped to the fore-top- gallant-yard, higher than which she could not climb, and whither the savages durst not venture. For though after their nuts these Polynesians will climb palm trees like squirrels; yet, at the first blush, they decline a ship's mast like Kennebec farmers.
Just then, as I was looking aloft, I saw a bird pitch on the fore-topgallant yard-arm. "A booby! a booby!" was the cry. Tommy Bigg was in the fore-top, sent up for something or other, and the desire to possess the bird seized him. Any incident, however light, creates a sensation in a calm. All eyes were directed towards Tommy and the bird.
The day wore wearily away, crowded with doubt, anxiety, and perplexity to the runaways. At three in the afternoon, when the starboard watch were on deck, Peaks, by order of Mr. Fluxion, stationed a lookout in the fore-top. Perth and Herman were the first to do this duty. "I suppose our game is all up," said the latter, as they seated themselves in the top.
The French being to windward, drew inshore; and the English fleet was becalmed six or seven miles to the westward. L'ALCIDE, of seventy-four guns, struck; but before she could be taken possession of, a box of combustibles in her fore-top took fire, and the unhappy crew experienced how far more perilous their inventions were to themselves than to their enemies.
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