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The helm was put up, as the men, perceiving their imminent danger, climbed upon the guns to look if the vessel altered her course; but no down she came, and the head-sails of the Utrecht having been carried away, to their horror they perceived that she would not answer her helm and pay off as they required. "Ship, ahoy!" roared Philip through his trumpet but the gale drove the sound back.
Swarms of men set the head-sails and brought the frigate round, while the gun-crews threw off their jackets and shirts, tightened their belts, and ran out their eighteen-pounders, peering through the open portholes at the stately French man. The wind was very light. Hardly a ripple showed itself upon the clear blue water, but the sails blew gently out as the breeze came over the wooded banks.
Then the old man got her up in the wind until the jib was shaking like thunder; then he held her off, and she went off as soon as the head-sails filled, and he couldn't get her back again without the spanker.
Her helm was then put up, and her head-sails filling, she ran off before the wind. Gerald grasped Owen's hand. "Faith, you've had a narrow escape!" he exclaimed. "Indeed, we have," answered Owen; "and, I fear, have lost a large number of our crew. Had you not come up, we should every one of us been killed."
Taking another look at the ships which had now crossed our wake, he added, "Blast those Nantucketers! They can smell a sperm-whale five miles to their leeward any time." He had come down from the rigging, and ordered the head-sails thrown back. The order was obeyed, and stepping to the ship's waist, he placed his powerful shoulders against the whale-boat, and said: "Now, boys, all shove together!"
When the American consul left the ship Matt Peasley was on the poop bawling orders; up on the topgallant forecastle the capable Mr. Murphy and his bully boys were walking around the windlass to the bellowing chorus of Roll A Man Down! while the boatswain, promoted by Matt Peasley to second mate, was laying aloft forward shaking out the topsails and hoisting her head-sails.
On deck there are the sheet-anchor men stationed on the forecastle, whose duty is to tend the head-sails, anchors, etcetera, and consequently the most trustworthy veterans are selected for the office. In what is called the waist, or the centre of the ship, the landsmen and least skilful of the crew are placed.
With the crack of the gun the swimmer reared himself up in the water, waved his hands in a gesture of warning, and roared out in a voice which rang over the bay. Then, as the sloop swung round her head-sails, and the pirate fired an impotent broadside, Stephen Craddock, smiling grimly in his death agony, sank slowly down to that golden couch which glimmered far beneath him.
Technically speaking, they are "secured in-board"; and, on the forecastle head, lashed down to ring-bolts with ropes and chains, under the straining sheets of the head-sails, they look very idle and as if asleep.
"Do you dislike it, Sir Gervaise? Now to our fancies aboard here, it gives the Achilles a knowing look, and we hope to set a fashion. By carrying the head-sails well forward, we help the ship round in a sea, you know, sir." "Indeed, I know no such thing, my lord. What you gain after being taken aback, you lose in coming to the wind.
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