United States or Bosnia and Herzegovina ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Well, here we lay, the mainsail in the brails, the top-sails beating the mast-heads, like a maiden fanning herself when she sees her lover, and nothing full but the upper duck, with the sun fairly below the water in the western board. I was then young, and quick of eye, as of foot, and therefore among the first to see the sight!"
Before the voyage was over Fanny had greatly recovered her spirits, and had consented, when her friend Ellen Ferris married, to become Archie's bride. This was the most important event of the voyage. On a fine bright morning the Ouzel Galley sailed into the Bay of Dublin, with flags flying at her mast-heads and mizen-peak.
For the next week the three mast-heads were so loaded with midshipmen, that the boatswain proposed a preventer backstay, that the top-masts might not go over the side; but shortly after, Captain L , who was not pleased at the falsehood which Mr W had circulated, and who had many other reasons for parting with him, succeeded in having him appointed to another ship; after which the midshipmen walked up and down the quarter-deck with their hands in their pockets, as before.
Salt rose so much in the interval, that the seizure turned out to be a good thing for the owners. While the ship was lying off the Battery, on her return from this voyage, and before she had hauled in, a boat came alongside with a young man in her in naval uniform. This was Cooper, who, in pulling across to go aboard his own vessel, had recognised our mast-heads, and now came to look at us.
His necessities supplied, Derick departed; but he had not gained his ship's side, when whales were almost simultaneously raised from the mast-heads of both vessels; and so eager for the chase was Derick, that without pausing to put his oil-can and lamp-feeder aboard, he slewed round his boat and made after the leviathan lamp-feeders.
To the mast-heads of other vessels out in the night were other skippers, or seine-masters, and all with skill and nerve and a great will to get fish. The Johnnie was making perhaps ten knots good now, and with every jerk the painter of the seine-boat chafed and groaned in the taffrail chock. The skipper from the boat called for more line. "Slack away a bit, slack away. We're not porpoises."
At six o'clock day began to break; and, with the first glimmer of light, the electric light of the narwhal disappeared. At seven o'clock the day was sufficiently advanced, but a very thick sea fog obscured our view, and the best spy glasses could not pierce it. That caused disappointment and anger. I climbed the mizzen-mast. Some officers were already perched on the mast-heads.
But Claudius, recking little of his laurels, went and sat in his cabin, pondering deeply. Barker, from a distance, had witnessed the conversation between Margaret and the Doctor. He came up murmuring to himself that the plot was thickening. "If Claudius makes a corner in mast-heads, there will be a bull market," he reflected, and he also remembered that just now he was a bear.
It was soon succeeded by others, and whiffs and cornets were seen flying from the mast-heads that rose above the openings in the cliffs, the signals of recall for all boats. This set every one in motion, and, never within the memory of man, had Wychecombe presented such a scene of confusion and activity.
She had already taken twenty whales, or fish, as sailors wrongly call them. For some time Captain Brown was very civil and good-natured, and we began to hope that our friend had received a wrong account of him. Although we did not expect to meet with whales, men were always kept at the mast-heads on the look-out.
Word Of The Day