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The captain, aided by the passenger, was lashing the throat of the gaff down to its place, when a heavy bolt of lightning, accompanied at the same instant by a terrific peel of thunder, struck the main-royal mast-head, and leaped down the mast in a lurid current of fire.
Mr Nott now took the helm, while the crew went aloft to furl the lighter canvas and to take a reef in the topsails. While True Blue was on his way up to hand the main-royal, his eye fell on a vessel following directly in the wake of the brig, which might have been seen long before had not they all been so fully occupied. He hailed Mr Nott and pointed her out.
With them he pushed off; and, after much weary pulling, and many perilous, unsuccessful onsets, he at last succeeded in getting one iron fast. Meantime, Gabriel, ascending to the main-royal mast-head, was tossing one arm in frantic gestures, and hurling forth prophecies of speedy doom to the sacrilegious assailants of his divinity.
Taking his stand on the hawse-block, he drew from his pocket a small note-book, cast upon it his eye and announced doubtless through the trumpet "Man the fore-royal braces!" Again a pause, and further reference. "Man the main-royal braces!" Again a pause: "Man the mizzen-royal braces Man all the royal braces."
Let us do all we can to merit the blessings of a gracious Creator, and the good-fellowship of our fellow-creatures, and we shall not be very unhappy, although far distant from each other.’ The last morning I spent with my wife was a mixture of cheerfulness and grief. At last I tore myself away. I have now given you the whole history, from the main-royal truck down to the kelson.”
Her sails rose rapidly above the horizon for the first hour or so, but after that, as we brought her more on our quarter, they began to sink again. When about abeam of us, the stranger hoisted the tricolour at her gaff-end, fired a gun, and showed a signal from her main-royal mast- head, of which we could make nothing.
Hurrying below for my own private telescope, which was an exceptionally fine instrument, I slung it over my shoulder and wended my way aloft to the main-royal yard. "Whereabout is she, Dixon?" I asked, as I swung myself up on the yard beside him. "Ah, there she is; I see her. Mind yourself a bit and let me have a peep at her."
By the time that this message had been communicated by the slow and tedious process then in vogue the two vessels were too far apart to render any further conversation possible, and in little more than an hour after the final hauling-down of the last signal the Vestale's main-royal sank beneath the verge of the western horizon, and we were once more alone.
Boyd, go aloft and loose the main-royal," pointing one of the revolvers full at him. "I refuse," exclaimed the seaman. "I demand to be taken before Captain " A flash, a sharp report, and the man staggered backwards and fell to the deck, while a crimson stain appeared and rapidly broadened on the breast of his check shirt.
The wind is still westerly, and a favourable opportunity is therefore afforded for the prosecution of our search to the eastward. Now, from our main-royal- yard a man can see very nearly twenty miles far enough, at all events, to make out any land at that distance suitable for your purpose.
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