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We immediately luffed and returned the compliment, giving him the whole of our port broadside, main-deck and upper-deck guns; and when the smoke blew away we had the satisfaction of seeing that we had shot away his jib-booms, thus depriving him of a considerable amount of head-sail at a most critical moment.
Yet even I have seen the bowsprits and jib-booms of the Australian packets diminish down the quays of the East Dock as an arcade; and of that West Dock there is a boy who well remembers its quays buried under the largess of the tropics and the Spanish Main, where now, through the colonnades of its warehouse supports, the vistas are empty.
Mason now seemed to have got his hand in, for his next shot hit the frigate's bowsprit-end as fair as though he had specially aimed at it, knocking the cap to pieces, and causing the jib-booms to go over to leeward.
I never felt certain of finding all the sticks in their places, on turning out of a morning, when he was with you as a lieutenant, Greenly. How many jib-booms and top-gallant yards did he cost us, in that cruise off the Cape of Good Hope? By George, it must have been a dozen, at least!"
I had seen her before, of course, in the Docks, when I had gone down to inspect her and choose my cabin; but she was then less than half loaded; her decks were dirty and lumbered up with bales and cases of cargo; her jib-booms were rigged in, and her topgallant-masts down on deck; and altogether she was looking her worst; while now, lying well out toward the middle of the stream as she was, she looked a perfect picture, as she lay with her bows pointing down-stream, straining lightly at her cable upon the last of the flood-tide, loaded down just sufficiently, as it seemed, to put her into perfect sailing trim, her black hull with its painted ports showing up in strong contrast to the peasoup-coloured flood upon which she rode, her lofty masts stayed to a hair, and all accurately parallel, gleaming like ruddy gold against the dingy murk of the wild-looking sky.
It belongs to those days when, if you went to New Zealand, you had to go by sailer; when the East India Dock had an arcade of jib-booms and bowsprits, with sometimes a varnished shark's tail terminal the Euterpe, Jessie Readman, Wanganui, Wazmea, Waimate, Opawa, Margaret Galbraith, Helen Denny, Lutterworth, and Hermione. There were others. What is in these names? But how can we tell?
Seen through the powerful lenses of the brig's telescope, Leslie made out that she had once been a full-rigged ship, and from the little that showed above water he judged her to be American-built. Her three masts were gone by the board, also her jib-booms, which were snapped close off by the bowsprit end.
This completely disabled the frigate, so far as chasing to windward was concerned, as with the loss of her jib-booms she also lost the use of her jibs; the pressure of her after-sail at once throwing her up into the wind until she was all aback.
In this manner I tarred down all the head-stays, but found the rigging about the jib-booms, martingale, and spritsail yard, upon which I was afterwards put, the hardest. Here you have to ``hang on with your eyelids'' and tar with your hands.
There he "sings aloft 'twixt heaven and earth," and if the rope slips, breaks, or is let go, or if the bowline slips, he falls overboard or breaks his neck. This, however, is a thing which never enters into a sailor's calculation. In this manner I tarred down all the head-stays, but found the rigging about the jib-booms, martingale, and spritsail yard, upon which I was afterwards put, the hardest.
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