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At first, the breeze came in fitful puffs, which were neither very strong nor very lasting. This induced Mrs. Budd to awaken Biddy. Luckily, a schooner without a topsail could not very well be taken aback, especially as the head-sheets worked on travellers, and Mrs. Budd and her assistant contrived to manage the tiller very well for the first hour that these varying puffs of wind lasted.
After a short pause, the mate, taking another glimpse aloft, said, "Slack off the main-sheet." "Ay, ay, Sir," several men replied, and hurried, with a kind of trot, to comply with the command. "How are the head-sheets?" again said the mate. "All taut, Sir," answered a voice. "Ease them off," was the mate's command. "Ay, ay, Sir," the same voice answered.
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 toward 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.
When in the act of making a tack towards the tender, the sailors who worked the head-sheets were, all of a sudden, alarmed with the sound of the smith's hammer and anvil on the beacon, and had just time to put the ship about to save her from running ashore on the northwestern point of the rock, marked 'James Craw's Horse. On looking towards the direction from whence the sound came, the building and beacon-house were seen, with consternation, while the ship was hailed by those on the rock, who were no less confounded at seeing the near approach of the Smeaton; and, just as the vessel cleared the danger, the smith and those in the mortar gallery made signs in token of their happiness at our fortunate escape.
To be precise, the wind is north-east; the Snark's mizzen is furled, her mainsail is over to starboard, her head-sheets are hauled flat: and the Snark's course is south-south-west. And yet there are men who have sailed the seas for forty years and who hold that no boat can run before it without being steered.
The boys were to scrape the potatoes or rather prepare the yams, for we had none of the former root and tend the head-sheets. A boatswain's mate, Sam Kelson, who had been in hospital, had been allowed to accompany the midshipmen before returning on board. The two midshipmen were to act as officers.
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