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Hear him: Having hove short, cast off the gaskets, and made the bunt of each sail fast by the jigger, with a man on each yard, at the word the whole canvas of the ship was loosed, and with the greatest rapidity possible everything was sheeted home and hoisted up, the anchor tripped and cat-headed, and the ship under headway.
Up the ratlines of the rigging clambered the men, racing against each other to see who would be up first, while others below cast off the ropes holding up the bunt and leech of the sail, as soon as the smart fellows had unloosed the gaskets; and then, the folds of the sails being dropped, were sheeted home with a "one, two, three, and a yo heave ho!" by those on deck, before the top men were half-way down the shrouds.
We can hold this course till we pick up the lights. Anchor in thirteen fathoms. You'd better overhaul forty-five on a night like this. After that get the gaskets on the mainsail. We won't need it." Half an hour afterward his weary eyes were rewarded by a glimpse of two lights. "There they are, Jacobsen. I'll take the wheel. Run down the fore-staysail and stand by to let go. Make the niggers jump."
The sails were loosed from their gaskets, and the sounds of the drum and fifes struck up as the capstans were manned, the soldiers lending a hand at the bars, and the chains came clanking in at the hawse-holes. "There is a vessel coming in round the point," O'Connor said. "But we shall hardly get the last news; we shall be under way before she anchors."
Up, well up, the fluke of her, and inboard haul! Well, ah, fare you well for the Channel wind's took hold of us, Choking down our voices as we snatch the gaskets free, And its blowing up for night. And she's dropping light on light, And she's snorting and she's snatching for a breath of open sea. The worst of Mr. Kipling is that, in verse like this, he is not only omniscient; he is knowing.
"Cross-jack yards all ready, sir!" "Lay down, all hands but one on each yard!" The yard-arm and bunt gaskets were cast off; and each sail hung by the jigger, with one man standing by the tie to let it go.
And to me, every rope-yarn of the Parki's was invested with interest. The outlandish fashion of her shrouds, the collars of her stays, the stirrups, seizings, Flemish-horses, gaskets, all the wilderness of her rigging, bore unequivocal traces of her origin.
The vessel's topsails, as I have mentioned before, were already cast loose from the gaskets and her courses hung in the brails, while she was lying in the stream, heading almost due south and facing the entrance of the harbour, into which the tide was still running and, consequently, keeping her cable as taut as a fiddle-string; but now, on the captain's command causing the hands to man the topsail halliards and run up the yards to the mast-head, the ponderous folds of canvas expanded with the wind, which was still to the nor'-east and blowing from aft, and the ship, in spite of the incoming tide, surged up to her anchor, bringing it right under her fore foot, thus slackening the strain on the cable.
Really, I quite astonished Tom by climbing up the futtock shrouds outside the top, instead of going through "the lubber's hole," showing myself, thanks to Tim Rooney's private instructions previously, much more nimble in casting off the gaskets and loosening the bunt of the sail than my brother mid expected; indeed, I got off the yard, after the job was done, and down to the deck a good half minute in advance of him.
I therefore had no hesitation whatever in hauling the schooner in under the lee of the island until we were actually becalmed, when, the lead giving us a depth of barely four fathoms, I let go the anchor and stripped the schooner of all her canvas, not furling it, however, but simply passing a few turns of the gaskets, so that everything might be ready for making sail again at a moment's notice.
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