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We had the main-top-gallant-sail set, without studding-sails, for we began to think of the deep bight in which Genoa is stowed, and the sun had dipped more than an hour. As our good fortune would have it, clouds and mistrails do not agree long, and we got a clear horizon. Here lay a mountain of snow, northerly, a little west, and there lay another, southerly with easting.
Whenever the main-top-gallant-sail was set on the stump of the mizen-mast she commonly griped too much, so as to render the steerage very difficult, and yet this had been carried, whenever it could be, in order to keep pace with the merchantmen, the slowest of which went nearly as fast under their bare poles.
As it is, we are barely able to furl the main-top-gallant-sail in a squall, leaving one hand at the wheel, and another to let go rigging. No, no, Moses; we must admit we are rather short-handed, putting the best face on the matter." "If you generalize in that mode, Miles, my dear boy, I must allow that we are.
The carpenter himself, going with another man to furl the main-top-gallant-sail in a squall, was nearly pushed from the rigging by an unseen hand; and his shipmate swore that a wet hammock was flirted in his face. Stories like these were related as gospel truths, by those who declared themselves eye-witnesses.
In the afternoon one of the seamen, in furling the main-top-gallant-sail, fell off the yard and was so fortunate as to save himself by catching hold of the main-top-mast-stay in his fall. At night the wind increased to a strong gale with a heavy sea. Tuesday 25.
The ever-to-be-lamented Captain Pownoll received a wound through his body about an hour after the action commenced, when standing at the gangway. The enemy had then suffered much, having lost the yard-arms of both his lower yards, and had no sails drawing but his foresail, main-top-gallant-sail, and mizen-topsail, the others flying about.
The admiral, therefore, gave orders for all the buckets to be manned, and every officer to help towards freeing the ship; the mizen-top-sail was set upon the fore-mast, the main-top-gallant-sail on the stump of the mizen-mast, and the tiller shipped. In this condition, by bearing away, she scudded on at so good a rate that she held pace with some of the merchantmen.
The sails are named after the masts to which they are fastened, namely, the main-sail; above that the main-top-sail; above that the main-top-gallant-sail; and sometimes a very small sail, named the royal, is spread above all. Behind the main-sail there is a small fore-and-aft sail similar to the main-sail of a schooner, which is called the boom-main-sail.
It was a direct invitation to Sir Gervaise to come down, fairly alongside; the bearing up at once removing all risk of being raked in so doing. The English commander-in-chief was not a man to neglect such a palpable challenge; but, making a few signals to direct the mode of attack he contemplated, he set fore-sail and main-top-gallant-sail, and brought the wind directly over his own taffrail.
Seeing this, I let the fore-sail drop, and sheeted home and hoisted the main-top-gallant-sail; not that I felt at all afraid of the boat, but because it was my wish to avoid bloodshed, if possible. Among the other absurdities the French had committed, in their haste to get away from the frigate, was that of leaving six or eight muskets, with several cartridge-boxes, behind them.
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