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"Very true," answered Willy; "but there is one thing I have been told to do, and that is to keep a bright look-out, though it may be difficult enough to see an object; even should one be ahead." "On course, sir," said Paul, "what is our duty must be done, though it would be a hard matter to see the `David Dunn' of Dover, even if our jibboom were over her taffrail."
It was a question which would first go, our mainmast or the Frenchman's jibboom. Fortunately for us, the latter was carried away, and our mainmast stood. The moment our captain saw the stem of the Cleopatra strike us, supposing that the French were about to board, he shouted out, "Boarders, repel boarders!"
Almost in an instant a heavy sea got up, into which the ship violently pitched as she forced her way ahead. The flying jib having been carelessly secured, the gaskets, or small ropes which bound it to the jibboom, gave way. Two hands were immediately sent out to make it fast. While they were thus employed, a tremendous sea struck the bows.
Thus we had her sparred, all but a bowsprit and jibboom; yet this we managed by making a stumpy, spike bowsprit from one of the smaller spars which they had used to shore up the superstructure, and because we feared that it lacked strength to bear the strain of our fore and aft stays, we took down two hawsers from the fore, passing them in through the hawse-holes and setting them up there.
I whispered to Alderson directions, and when the jibboom of the schooner came down with the next recession of a wave I swung myself to it by means of the chain, using the stays to brace my foot. Here I lay for a minute getting my bearings, while the sailors in the boat below backed quietly out of sight among the shore bushes that overhung the banks. So far as I could see the deck was deserted.
The tow-rope, tautening under the last stroke of our oars, had drawn the boat back in its recoil, and she now drifted close under the Gauntlet's jibboom, which ran out upon a very short bowsprit. I stood up, and reaching for a grip on the dolphin-striker, swung myself on to the bobstay and thence to the cap of the bowsprit, where I sat astride for a moment while Billy followed.
"What did the Buccaneer say when you nailed his nose to the flying jibboom?" "Please make me a good boy," replied Torps, somewhat at random. "Oh, same's I do," said Cornelius James. "More or less; isn't that sword very uncomfortable?" But no answer came back, for Cornelius James, the hilt of the sword grasped firmly in two small hands, had passed into the Valhalla of Childhood.
Fortunately for the crew of the Kestrel, both of the boats were not able to board at once, for that on the larboard bow was driven right into the wreck of the jibboom and sail, which, with the attendant cordage, proved to be sufficient to hamper their progress for the time being, while the other boat dashed alongside with a French cheer, and, sword in hand, the crew swarmed over on to the deck.
One cannot," he continued, as who should say, "Let us be reasonable," "one cannot, to take a parallel case, imagine the colonel commanding the garrison at a naval station going on board a battleship and ordering the crew to splice the jibboom spanker.
Without her heavy jibboom, and with her canvas well reefed down, the 'Sunbeam' rode through it all, dipping her head into the sea, shivering from stem to stern, and then giving herself a shake, preparatory to a fresh start, just like a playful water-bird emerging from a prolonged dive.
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