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Updated: May 11, 2025
The captain said he remembered nothing of the sort. If he did, he must have meant it for the men on the schooner to get on board the lifeboat. Thereupon the wave sweeping them along the schooner's side, Joe sprang at the main-shrouds, and they dropped on the deck together.
She had a flush or level deck from the well in the bows to a fathom or so past the main-shrouds; it was then broken by a short poop-deck, which went in a great spring or rise to the stern, that was after the pink style, very narrow and tall.
On entering Berkeley Sound, every man was at his post, ready to let go the anchor. The look-outs were on the watch, men were stationed in the main-shrouds to heave the lead. Then first at twenty, after at eighteen fathoms, the presence of rocks was reported. The ship was now about half a league off shore, and Freycinet thought it prudent to put her off about two points.
Just as we came under his quarter he pointed a gun that was sticking out a little abaft his main-shrouds right at us, and put the match to it, but it happened very luckily that the gun blew. A fellow that was standing on the quarter-deck then took up a blunderbuss and presented it, which by its not going off must have missed fire.
He was below when the ship sunk, directing the men at the chain-pump, but was washed up the hatchway, thrown into the waist and from thence into the water, and his feet, as he plunged, struck against a rock. On ascending he swam to gain the main-shrouds, when three men suddenly seized hold of him.
Others threw themselves voluntarily over the barricades into the waist, and thought themselves happy to lie concealed amongst the cattle; but the greatest part escaped up the main-shrouds and sheltered themselves either in the tops or rigging; and though the Indians attacked only the quarter-deck, yet the watch in the forecastle, finding their communication cut off, and being terrified by the wounds of the few who, not being killed on the spot, had strength sufficient to force their passage along the gangways, and not knowing either who their enemies were or what were their numbers, they likewise gave all over for lost, and in great confusion ran up into the rigging of the foremast and bowsprit.
He stopped at the main-shrouds again, the axe descended and the mainmast went over the side. The relief from the weight of the mast and the pressure of the wind upon it was immediate; the Wild Wave rose with a surge and her lee-rail appeared above the surface, then she rose no further. Mr. Timmins looked back again at the captain, but the latter made no sign.
Barker perceived that they would overtake him before long, and he determined on flight, not forward or aft, but aloft; and he leisurely lifted himself into the main-shrouds, and climbing half-way, hooked his feet through the ratlines.
Finding that he could not free himself, and that both would be drowned, he threw his legs round a hammock, and, unbuttoning his waistcoat with one hand, he allowed it to be drawn off, and then swam for the main-shrouds.
When the stores had been received on board, the anchor was weighed in order to take up a more favourable position for making a start, but, unfortunately, shortly after the ship got underway, a man named Peter Flowers fell from the main-shrouds into the sea and was drowned before assistance could be rendered: the second death since leaving England.
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