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Updated: June 12, 2025
After the tackling was prepared and in good working order, it took me the greater part of a day to hoist the main-top sail. As I could not steer and work at this at the same time, I lashed the helm in such a position that, with a little watching now and then, it kept the schooner in her proper course.
In a very few minutes all except Curtis and old O'Ready had left the "Chancellor." Curtis remained standing on the main-top, deeming it not only his duty, but his right, to be the last to leave the vessel he had loved so well, and the loss of which he so much deplored. "Now then, old fellow off of this!" cried the captain to the old Irishman, who did not move.
She had never given away so much money in her life before, but she seemed to feel instinctively that now she must give freely now that she was the wife of an officer of the navy. Strange how these sailors to-day seemed so different to her from ever before she felt as if they all belonged to her. She offered the shilling to the captain of the main-top.
That was the nearest approach to brightness those lovers of their father allowed themselves, within five months of his tragic death; though if the old Admiral could have looked down from the main-top, probably he would have shouted, "No flags at half-mast for me, my pets!"
She came with such force that she, by the shock, carried away her fore-mast, bowsprit, main-top mast and figure-head. She fortunately struck us abaft the main channels; had she done so amidships, it would have meant the destruction of both ships and of about a thousand lives.
There were many bergs in sight, of various shapes and sizes, at some distance from the ship, which caused much anxiety to the captain, although they were only a source of admiration to our young friends in the main-top. "Tom," said Fred, breaking a long silence, "it may seem a strange idea to you, but, do you know, I cannot help fancying that heaven must be something like this."
"Ay, ay sir; I sees it, plain enough," answered the man named Bill; while his companion, Tom, replied, "Yes; I can see something afloat out there, certingly; but I wouldn't like to take it upon me to say what it is." "Very well," said Leslie, turning to Bill; "you appear to have tolerably good eyes " "Main-top, there," interrupted Potter, "are you coming down out of that, or aren't you?
When the fore-topmast staysail and jib were to be set, somebody had fouled the down-hauls, so that they could not be hoisted. There was a kink in the halyards of the main-top gallant-sail, so that it would not run through the block. Clewlines, clew-garnets, leachlines, and buntlines were in a snarl.
And in this watch he was a maintop-man; that is, was stationed in the main-top, with a number of other seamen, always in readiness to execute any orders pertaining to the main-mast, from above the main-yard. For, including the main-yard, and below it to the deck, the main-mast belongs to another detachment.
This consisted of an arrangement of pulleys depending from the main-top, with a large blubber-hook at the end thereof. The cutting was commenced at the neck, and the hook attached; then the men hove on the windlass, and while the cutting was continued in a spiral direction round the whale's body, the tackle raised the mass of flesh until it reached the fixed blocks above.
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