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Updated: June 12, 2025
"Haul taut the main-top bowlines!" "Haul taut the starboard fore-topgallant-sheet." "Maintop, there! Send a hand up and square the bunt gaskets of the topgallant-sail!" "By Jove!" said one of the admiring listeners, "there's seamanship for you!" We all silently agreed, and I dare say many thought we might as well give it up and go home. Such excellence was not for us.
The professor was tipped over by getting entangled in a piece of rigging, a bucket of water was dashed upon his legs, and a portion of the contents of a slush-tub was poured upon him from the main-top. No one seemed to see him; the students appeared to be struck with blindness, so far as the learned gentleman was concerned.
To those who clung to the main-top of the "Nancy" these signals were a bright gleam of hope, with the exception of Lucy, whose spirit sank when she endeavoured in vain to penetrate the thick darkness that followed.
"Up dere," said Fleece, holding his tongs straight over his head, and keeping it there very solemnly. "So, then, you expect to go up into our main-top, do you, cook, when you are dead? But don't you know the higher you climb, the colder it gets? Main-top, eh?" "Didn't say dat t'all," said Fleece, again in the sulks.
Scarcely had the captain uttered these words in a loud voice, than a hand in the main-top hailed the deck with the words, "I hear a voice from down to leeward, sir." I had heard it also, I was certain. It was O'Connor's manly voice. It was not a shriek, the death-wail of a struggling wretch, but a bold, nervous hail. "Hold fast then with the main-topsail braces," cried the captain.
"All right, sir," said Ben, touching his forelock with an old sailor trick a token of respect involuntarily forced from him by Frank's manly promptitude in taking the bull by the horns, "We're with you to the last ditch, the top of the main-top gallant, the bottom of the deep-blue sea, or the ends of the earth." "That goes for us too, Frank," supplemented Billy.
"Now, sir, up to the main-top gallant mast-head; perch yourself upon the cross-trees up with you." "What am I to go up there for, sir?" inquired Jack. "For punishment, sir," replied the master. "What have I done, sir?" "No reply, sir up with you." "If you please, sir," replied Jack, "I should wish to argue this point a little."
The top of the mizzen was the first to dis- appear, then followed the main-top; and soon, of what had been a noble vessel, not a vestige was to be seen. WILL this frail boat, forty feet by twenty, bear us in safety? Sink it cannot; the material of which it is com- posed is of a kind that must surmount the waves. But it is questionable whether it will hold together.
Suppose the fire has eaten its way through that?" "If it had the mast would fall; but the fire has worked forward, and, as far as I can see, the mast is untouched. Run up to the main-top, it is clear now. Have a look round, to see if you can make out the two boats with our friends." I looked at him sharply, and he laughed. "Not afraid that the main-mast will give way with your weight, are you?"
On ascending the main-top, I found the sun to be plainly visible over the land to the south; but at noon there was a dusky sort of cloud hanging about the horizon, which prevented our seeing anything like a defined limb, so as to measure or estimate its altitude correctly.
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