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Updated: June 3, 2025
Just as he spoke, Tommy Rebow was hunting the animal from shroud to backstay, up over the mast-head and down again. At last, Master Queerface made a spring out on the fore-yard. Tommy pursued him with thoughtless eagerness, and, in his attempt to get hold of him, lost his grasp. Over he went. In vain he caught at the foot-rope; and giving a turn, struck the water with his head.
Again the frigates, on opposite tacks, poured in their broadsides the fore-yard of the Frenchman was divided in the slings, and fell, hanging by the topsail sheets and lifts, and tearing the sails, which fell over the forecastle guns, and caught fire as they were discharged at the same moment. This threw the men at the guns into confusion, and brought the ship up in the wind.
We recollect a case in which one of these delicate craft, a half-rigged brig, was much abused for "having lost her sailing." She did, indeed, lose her fore-yard, and, after that, she sailed like a witch, until she got a new one!
The other three men were on the fore-yard loosing the foresail, and Jack was undetermined whether to call them down immediately, or to allow them to loose the sail, and thus get good way on the vessel, so as to prevent the boat, which was loaded with men, from overtaking them.
"Can you make out her hull, Mr Forster?" cried Captain Oughton, hailing Newton, who was at the mast-head with a glass. "No, sir; her fore-yard is but now clear of the water, but she rises very fast." "What do you think of her spars, Forster?" said Captain Oughton to Newton, who had just descended to the last rattling of the main-rigging.
Men stood in readiness below to check the fall by easing off the other end of the rope, and the hardy fellow reached the deck in safety. This seemed a nervous undertaking to the landsmen; but the seamen who so well understood the machinery of their vessel, made light of it. On the fore-yard, Mr. Leach passed out on one yard-arm, and his co-adventurer, a common seaman, on the other.
My fingers were numb and I was chilled through when I took a last look at the wretched men on the fore-yard and went below to warm up. A little later, as I went in to table, through a cabin port I stole a look for'ard between seas and saw the men still struggling on the freezing yard. The four of us were at table, and it was very comfortable, in spite of the Elsinore's violent antics.
When we had the last 'bout with Monsieur de Gravelin, they were as saucy as peacocks, because we didn't close until their fore-yard and mizzen-top-gallant-mast were gone, although the shift of wind brought us dead to leeward, and, after all, we had eleven men the most hurt in the fight. You don't know them Plantagenet's, sir; for they never dare say any thing before you!"
The strips of canvass that remained attached to the yard, with the blocks and gear attached, threshed about in a way to threaten the lives of all that approached. This was only at the intervals when the ship settled into the troughs; for, while under the full influence of the gale, pennants never streamed more directly from a mast, than did these heavy fragments from the fore-yard.
"Brace round the fore-yard!" It was done, and the brig's head fell off to the westward. The main-topsail, closely reefed, was set, and we had then as much canvas as she could stagger under. As it was, several seas swept over her deck, carrying away portions of her bulwarks, and doing other damage; but all hands clung on to the stanchions around the mast, and happily no one was washed overboard.
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