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Ay, ay, we'll clear the breakers now, with water to spare. "Here you," addressing an imaginary sailor, "get forward lively and clear that jib-sheet; and look out for the block. Hanged if we want a man overboard a night like this, eh, Mister Burns?" "Say, Jack, I wouldn't do that," replied Henry Burns, laughing at his comrade's antics. "You don't know what that may turn."
Abreast of this spot the cutter's jib-sheet was hauled to windward. Then the boat was lowered and filled with provisions in cases and casks, and Diaz, with four hands, went ashore and carried everything up beyond high water-mark. Brabant watched them unconcernedly from the ship. The boat returned and Diaz came on deck, and looked at the captain expectantly.
The canvas on board the launch was accordingly still further reduced, the jib-sheet hauled over to windward, and the boat left to fight it out as best she could. The pinnace soon afterwards joined company and followed suit, the remainder of the boats doing the same as they came up.
Because her mast was so far aft, her forefoot so deep and narrow, her helm so insufficient, that but for this gigantic sprit she would never come round, and even as it was she hung in stays and had to have her weather jib-sheet hauled in for about five minutes before she would come round. So much for the sprit. This is not all, nor nearly all. She had about six inches of free-board.
We had just comfortably completed our work, and I had established myself at the tiller, with Giaccomo at the mainsheet, and Francois as the French lad called himself at the jib-sheet, when there came a terrific flash of lightning, green and baleful, illumining for a single instant the entire scene, and revealing our pertinacious friend, the "Vigilant," in her old berth astern, with her long tapering yards lowered to the deck, and two stumpy lugs and a pocket-handkerchief of a jib hoisted in their place.
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