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Why don't you bear off! Cut away the laniards of those shrouds, and clear the main chainwales! Bring an axe here, and cut away that fore-stay which is foul of the main yard!" Calling now to Bohun, who stood in the forward part of the sloop with a most rueful visage, the captain said, "Why don't you pay out cable, you lubber, and drop astern, clear of the brig?"
At the given word the laniards were pulled together, and together as one the six black guns, belching flame and lead, roared their last challenge on the misty night, sending a deadly hail of shot and shell, tearing the trees and splintering the rocks of the farther side, and sending the thunder reverberating through the pass and down the mountain, startling from its slumber the sleeping camp on the hills below, and driving the browsing deer and the prowling mountain-fox in terror up the mountain.
I brought it on deck, and began to reeve laniards for the shrouds. I then procured a handspike and heaver, and went to work setting up the rigging by a "Spanish windlass." I had only once seen an operation of this kind performed; but having closely watched the process, I knew I could perform it successfully. In this matter Bohun rendered me valuable aid.
The laniards of the shrouds had been cut away on both sides, and the tall and tapering mast was quivering and bending like a whipstock, from the action of the wind and the waves.
The side was cut for a gun-port, which opened and shut by means of laniards; and, pointing through the opened port was a model brass nine-pounder on its carriage, with all its roping correctly rigged, and its sponges and rammers hooked up above it ready for use. "There you are," said Marah Gorsuch. "That lot's for you, Mr Preacher-feller. Them things is what the Queen sent."
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