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Updated: June 25, 2025
And there he sat twisting and craning himself about, and screwing his features into combinations evincing the most comical perplexity. The captain, by the way of a bit of fun, pretended not to hear him. "Maintop, there," quoth he. The midshipman in the top answered him, "Ay, ay, sir." "Not you, Mr Reefpoint; the captain of the top I want."
At first a light wind filled the sails, but when the round moon went down in the west and the sun rose, there was Teneriffe still at hand, and the sea glassy. It rested like a mirror all that day, and the sails hung empty and the banner at maintop but a moveless wisp of cloth. In the night arose a contrary wind, and another red dawn showed us Teneriffe still.
Upon this the officer of the watch sent up the captain of the maintop, an experienced and quick-sighted seaman, who, having for some minutes looked in vain in every direction, asserted positively that there was nothing in sight from that elevation.
You have no faith in anything; and if you are going to croak like this, I don't want you in the Chain," added Shuffles, petulantly. "I'm in for it, already; and when I can see my way clearly, I shall be as strong as you are." "Then don't croak any more. We must go to work while the fever is on the fellows, and make up " "In the maintop, ahoy!" shouted the master, from the waist.
On the morning of the 14th of September the signal flag was flying from Drake's maintop to up anchor and away. Drake, as he admitted after, 'was not the most assured of her Majesty's perseverance to let them go forward. Past Ushant he would be beyond reach of recall. With light winds and calms they drifted across the Bay.
"Curukity coo curukity coo," sung out a great bushy whiskered sailor from the crows nest, who turned out to be no other than our old friend Timothy Tailtackle, quite juvenilffied by the laughing scene. "Here am I, Jack, a booby amongst the singing birds," crowed he to one of his messmates in the maintop, as he clutched a branch of a tree in his hand, and swung himself up into it.
"Now, let me think have I got 'em all?" and she counted on her fingers, "Jib, Bowsprit, Cutwater, Maintop, Mizzen, Bul'ark, Gunnel, Anchor, Chain, Block, Squall, Topmast, and Stern. Yes, that surely makes thirteen, doesn't it? I'm always proud when I can remember 'em."
One pleasant afternoon, the last of the passage, when the ship was nearing the Lizard, within a few hours' sail of her port, the officer-of-the-deck, happening to glance upwards towards the maintop, descried Israel there, leaning very leisurely over the rail, looking mildly down where the officer stood. "Well, Peter Perkins, you seem to belong to the maintop, after all."
"Biggest catch of the season, and you are just in time to help pack it away. But what brings you back so early? I thought you were off for all day." "Oh, White, they are coming!" gasped Cola. "Who are coming?" "A warship. I saw it from Maintop." "British or French?" "I don't know. I only knew it was a warship because it was so much bigger than the 'Harlaw' and had tall masts."
The wind fell; but the fogs continued at intervals; till, on the afternoon of the seventh of June, the weather having cleared, the watchman on the maintop saw the distant ocean studded with ships. It was the fleet of Boscawen. Hocquart, who gives the account, says that in the morning they were within three leagues of him, crowding all sail in pursuit.
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