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Updated: May 6, 2025
For a long time the young man stood an abstracted gazer at his solitary progress, watching the small boat as it glided towards the open ocean, nor did he remember to order the head-sheets of the Alacrity drawn, in order to put the vessel again in motion, until the dark speck was lost in the strong glare that fell obliquely across the water from the setting sun.
The party on board the Aurora distinctly heard the sounds of the conflict, and waited in breathless expectancy for its termination. They had not long to wait; in little over a couple of minutes Captain Leicester's voice was heard giving the order to shift the helm the brig having in the meantime gone round until she was head to wind with her canvas flat aback and to trim over the head-sheets.
"Helm's a lee!" cried the captain, and the head-sheets were let go; "raise tacks and sheets!" and the fore-tacks and main sheets were cast off; while the weather crossjack braces and the lee main braces were belayed, ready to be let go at a moment's notice, and the opposite braces hauled taut.
It became necessary to go about, but I gave the order to Peter very reluctantly. He handled the head-sheets, and then, instead of settling down in his old place, leaned his elbows on the coaming and stared into the sea. We were steadily approaching the lighthouse. I felt that I must run the risk of asking him a question. "What happened in the end?" I asked. "The end, is it?
I slipped down on deck, quick as lightning, triced up the main tack just high enough to enable me to see under the foot of the sail, and squared dead away before the wind. Ten minutes afterwards I caught a glimpse of the flag right ahead, as the boat rose on a sea; and then I edged away, taking room to run up alongside him on the port tack with my head-sheets to windward.
The boat stood well up to her canvas, but after passing high cliffs, and opening a channel from the sea, a sudden squall took her, and before we had time to cast off the sheet, she was over on her beam ends. Cousin Silas whipped out his knife and tried to cut the main-sheet, while I let go the head-sheets, and Burkett jammed down the helm; but it was too late over went the boat.
"Ay, sir, to my mind it's sad to think that the sea should swallow up so many fine fellows as she does every year, and yet we couldn't very well do without her, so I suppose it's all right. Mind your head-sheets, Jerry, or she'll not come about in this bobble," he observed, as we were about to tack round the buoy. Having kept well to the eastward, we were now laying up to windward of the fleet.
There was no fog nor mist, nor hint of fog or mist, yet the dimness of distance produced the impression. There were no defined clouds, yet so thickly were the heavens covered by a messy cloud-pall that the sun failed to shine through. "Ready about!" Captain Warfield ordered with slow sharpness. The brown, breech-clouted Kanaka sailors moved languidly but quickly to head-sheets and boom-tackles.
During the minute or two which had passed since our helm was put down, the Lily had been lying to on the starboard tack; our head-sheets still remaining fast on the starboard side.
You go forward" shake "and stop there" shake "and hold your noise" shake "and see these head-sheets properly overhauled" shake, shake shake. And all the time I dared not look towards the land lest my heart should fail me. I released my grip at last and he ran forward as if fleeing for dear life. I wondered what my double there in the sail locker thought of this commotion.
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