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Updated: June 12, 2025
Anxiously they looked for the sign of the assistance they sought, when at length, to their joy, they observed the desired lights flickering at their mast-heads, which continued shining for two hours, when the storm abated. They were thus convinced that Saint Elmo, the friend to mariners, had come to their assistance, accompanied by the other two saints.
And so saying, he placed himself half way within the scuttle, and slouching his hat, stood there till dawn, except when at intervals rousing himself to see how the night wore on. The Chase Second Day. At day-break, the three mast-heads were punctually manned afresh. "D'ye see him?" cried Ahab after allowing a little space for the light to spread. "See nothing, sir."
If she be already masted and alongside the hulk, and the ballast in, the officer will most likely wish to make some show in the way of rigging for as yet the masts are naked to the girt-lines, or single ropes rove through blocks at the mast-head, by which first the men and then the shrouds are drawn up, and the eyes of the rigging placed over the mast-heads.
For this the onlookers had not long to wait: the brig halted and trembled her sails shook in the wind, her crew were seen trying to free the cutter then she careened and sank until only her mast-heads stood out of the water. Most of the company ran for boats and lines, and few saw Rachel pitch forward on the earth-dead, with a fierce smile of exultation on her face.
Glad were we three tars to see the mast-heads of the shipping in the river, as we came near the banks of the Niagara. The house at the light was empty; but, on my hailing, a woman's voice answered from the cellar. It was an old woman who had taken shelter from shot down in the hold, the rest of the family having slipped and run.
Some ten or a dozen heads peered curiously at us over her weather bulwarks as she drove slowly past us, and one man aft on the quarter- deck, the officer of the watch apparently, seized a trumpet to hail us; but whether he did so or not, or, if he did, what he said, we neither of us knew; for at that moment we both sank once more into the trough with a perfect mountain of water between us, until we lost sight of him altogether for a moment, even to his mast-heads.
The acute policy dictating these movements was sufficiently vindicated at daybreak, by the sight of a long sleek on the sea directly and lengthwise ahead, smooth as oil, and resembling in the pleated watery wrinkles bordering it, the polished metallic-like marks of some swift tide-rip, at the mouth of a deep, rapid stream. "Man the mast-heads! Call all hands!"
The rigging lived. The mast-heads, like the tops of tall palms, were outspreadingly tufted with arms and legs. Clinging to a spar with one hand, some reached forth the other with impatient wavings; others, shading their eyes from the vivid sunlight, sat far out on the rocking yards; all the spars in full bearing of mortals, ready and ripe for their fate.
"Sir!" said the mate, astonished at an order seldom or never given on ship-board except in some extraordinary case. "Send everybody aft," repeated Ahab. "Mast-heads, there! come down!"
"In that case," he continued his train of thought, "no more mast-heads." "Good morning, Countess; Lady Victoria, good morning," he said, bowing. "I would take off my hat if I could, but the Doctor has set the cap of liberty on high." Lady Victoria and the Duke laughed, but Margaret said "Good morning" without a smile.
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