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By the greater wideness of the ports of the former, she could traverse almost all her guns, while the galleon could only bring a part of hers to bear. Scarcely had the action begun, when the mats with which the galleon had stuffed her netting took fire and burned violently, blazing up half as high as the mizen-top.
I was, by nature, a stronger man than Sennit, besides being younger and in my prime; while Diggens would not have been more than a child in Marble's hands. As for the man at the wheel, Neb could have thrown him half-way up to the mizen-top, on an emergency.
Soon after, the foresail was reefed, and we mizen-top men were sent up to take another reef in the mizen topsail. This was the first time I had taken a weather earing, and I felt not a little proud to sit, astride of the weather yard-arm, pass the earing, and sing out "Haul out to leeward!"
I then went below and brought up forty or fifty buckets of train oil, which I poured upon the deck abaft, so that it was covered with oil to the height of several inches. On the ensuing morning the bear came as I expected, and commenced his repast; I had stationed myself aloft, in the mizen-top, with several buckets of oil, which I poured upon him.
Your body hangs over in mid-air, at a terrible incline backwards, and you have to hold on like anything for just one moment, until you get your knee up into the top. The view of the ship under press of canvas from the mizen-top is very grand; and the phosphorescence in our wake, billow upon billow of light shining foam, seemed more brilliant than ever.
I also fitted myself out, for you see, William, although Sanders had persuaded me to be rational, I was still puffed up with pride at the idea of being captain of my own ship; it was too great a rise for one who had just before been a lad in the mizen-top of a man-of-war. I dressed myself very smart wore white shirts, and rings on my fingers.
They returned home, and after supper Ready went on with his narrative. "I left off at the time that I was sent on board of the man-of-war, and I was put down on the books as a supernumerary boy. I was on board of her for nearly four years, and we were sent about from port to port, and from clime to clime, until I grew a strong, tall lad, and was put into the mizen-top. I found it very comfortable.
The rigging, the mizen-top, and even the gaff, out to the very peak, the hammock-nettings and the quarters, almost down to the counter, are stuck over with breathless spectators, speaking in whispers, if they venture to speak at all, or can find leisure for anything but fixing their gaze on the monster, who as yet is free to roam the ocean, but who, they trust, will soon be in their power.
Here we separated, the carpenter boldly making his way forward past the noisy, jabbering, drunken crowd who were grouped about the main-hatchway, engaged in hoisting on deck the goods that the boatswain, down in the hold, was selecting from the ship's heterogeneous cargo, while the rest excepting Simpson and myself quietly stole up the mizen rigging, three of them concealing themselves in the top, while the rest, continuing on up the topmast rigging, made for the main and foretops by way of the stays; the lanterns which were being used to light the pirates at their work about the main-hatchway so effectually dazzling the drunken ruffians' eyes, that there was not the slightest fear of any of the silent, sober figures stealthily moving about aloft being seen by them; indeed so deep was the gloom created between the masts by the towering expanses of the Indiaman's canvas that even I, far away as I was from the dazzling light of the lanterns, was unable to follow with my eye the dusky, indistinctly-seen figures any further than the rim of the mizen-top.
On the 15th the colour of the water changed; and we sounded, but had no ground. On the 18th one of the Hope's men fell out of the Mizen-top on the Quarter-deck, and broke his Skull; so that he died, and was buried next day. A brisk fellow, that, from his merry ways, used to be called Brimstone Jemmy.
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