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Updated: May 20, 2025
My face was buried in the smothering folds of the threshing sail; then Newman had drawn me up until my body balanced on the yard. A second later my feet were again on the foot rope, and my hands fastened for dear life to the jackstay. I was conscious of using my voice then. Aye but I swore! "By heaven, he let go the port brace!" I yelled to Newman.
The jackstay was torn from his grasp, and he fell, face downward, into the black void beneath. An involuntary shriek began on his lips, but was not finished.
I put my left arm round the Ordinary's body getting hold of the jackstay on the other side. Then I looked up. Above us, I seemed to see something dark and indistinct, that moved rapidly up the lift. "Keep tight hold of him, while I get a gasket," I heard the Second Mate sing out. A moment later there was a crash, and the light disappeared. "Damn and set fire to the sail!" shouted the Second Mate.
The fellow made his way up the ratlines with extreme deliberation for, indeed, a journey aloft in such scorching heat was no joke made up the loose gasket, and was in the very act of swinging himself off the yard when, happening to be watching him, I saw him suddenly pause and stiffen into an attitude of attention as, holding on to the jackstay with one hand, he flung the other up to his forehead and peered ahead under the sharp of it.
At his touch, as though by magic, the young fellow calmed down, and Stubbins reaching round him grasped the jackstay on the other side. "Get a hold of him your side, Jessop," he sung out. "I'll get this side." This, I did, and Stubbins climbed round him. "There hain't no one here," Stubbins called to me; but his voice expressed no surprise. "What!" sung out the Second Mate. "No one there!
I asked, quickly. He jerked his head backwards and downwards. I screwed round a bit, holding the jackstay with one hand, and steadying the insensible Ordinary with the other. In this way I could look below. At first, I could see nothing. Then the Second Mate's voice came up to me again. "Who the hell are you? What are you doing?" I saw him now.
They were 32 ft. long and spaced 45 ft. apart, and connected by a jackstay to which the nets were attached. Each steel boom weighed 5 cwt., or less than half the weight of the ordinary boom, and whereas the latter is fixed to the ship's side by a hook which is liable to be disconnected or broken by the jerk of an exploding torpedo, Mr.
I had traced out bit by bit, until now I could clearly see the jackstay, running along the top of the royal mast; and, you know, the royal itself was set. But, you know, what was getting at me more than anything, was a feeling that there was movement down in the water there, among the rigging.
The damaged net was taken away and one of the old service grummet nets slung in its place, the cylinders containing the gun cotton being attached to the jackstay immediately in front of the battered sides, and 30 feet from the hulk, and sunk to a distance of 20 feet below the water line, which would bring it about opposite the bend of the bilge.
Whether they had gone overboard I could not tell, but the thought made me look to myself while I might. Pulling myself along the jackstay until I reached the bunt, I managed to grasp a line that was tailing taut downward toward the deck. This I grasped quickly with both hands, and bawling with all my might to Jackson and Davis to follow, I swung clear of the yard.
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