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Updated: May 3, 2025
When the Coquette had tacked, the calm and observant Skimmer was satisfied with throwing his head-sails flat to the mast. From that instant, the brigantine lay floating in the current, neither advancing nor receding a foot, and always keeping her position at a safe distance from the ship, that was so adroitly made to answer the purposes of a beacon.
Owing to their big head-sails, and to their heavy keels, these Bermudian craft fore-reach like a steamer, and hardly ever miss stays. For the same reason they are very wet, as they bury themselves in the water.
But, even as I looked, a string of lanterns soared up to her peak, from which position they were hidden from the chase by the intervention of the brig's head-sails, and when the signal was at length complete I found, as I had quite expected, that it was a question as to whether we still held the stranger in view.
The air of wind which Peter had promised, drawn from its cave by the lure of the departing sun, was filling our head-sails. I hauled in the main-sheet gently hand over hand and belayed it The boat slipped quietly along close-hauled. The long line of islands which guards the entrance of our bay lay dim before use.
It will help her along rarely when the head-sails cease to be of any good." Half an hour later the wind had gone round far enough for the square-sail to be used to advantage, and it was accordingly hoisted. The captain then had the barrels brought aft, and ranged along each side of the bulwark.
The dripping red head-sails of a bark glided out of the fog, and the We're Here rang her bell thrice, using sea shorthand. The larger boat backed her topsail with shrieks and shoutings. "Frenchman," said Uncle Salters, scornfully. "Miquelon boat from St. Malo." The farmer had a weatherly sea-eye. "I'm 'most outer 'baccy, too, Disko." "Same here," said Tom Platt. "Hi! Backez vous backez vous!
The wind dropped, fires were lighted, and at 4.30 p.m. we proceeded under steam. Soon after seven, whilst we were at dinner, the table gave a sudden lurch, which was followed by the sound of rain on the deck above. We found that a breeze had sprung up all at once, and had carried away some of our head-sails before they could possibly be taken in.
This was soon done, the head-sails were trimmed, and under a gentle westerly breeze we proceeded to work out of the bay. As the cutter had a boat of her own towing astern, I cast adrift the one we had "borrowed," and left her to take her chance of drifting ashore and finding her way once more into her proper owner's hands.
When the ship had fallen off dead before the wind, her head-sails were shaken, her after-yards trimmed, and her helm shifted, before she had time to run upon the danger that had threatened, as well to leeward as to windward.
At the end of a swift half-mile she rounded to, with head-sails trimming down and with a great flapping of main and mizzen, and dropped anchor in fifty feet of water so clear that every huge fluted clamshell was visible on the coral floor. The whaleboat was not necessary to put the Langa- Langa return boys ashore.
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