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He touched his sou'wester to the girl and mounted the weather mizzen-rigging, running up the ratlines as a fireman goes up a ladder.
We kept it up until nearly midnight, the poop being converted into a ball-room by merely hanging a few lamps in the mizzen-rigging; the orchestra consisting of one of the seamen, who played the concertina better than I ever heard it played before or since.
I dropped out of my hammock, pulled on my boots and monkey-jacket, and went on deck, noting the hour by the cabin clock to be twenty minutes before eleven. The captain stood at the mizzen-rigging with a telescope at his eye, and beside him stood Mr.
As the "Constitution" turned away, the bowsprit of the "Guerrière" lunged over her quarter-deck, and became entangled by her port mizzen-rigging; the result being that the two fell into the same line, the "Guerrière" astern and fastened to her antagonist as described.
The surgeon and purser were also there, though they stood a little apart from the more nautical dignitaries. The hail that followed came out of a trumpet that was thrust through the mizzen-rigging; the officer who used it taking his cue from the poop. "What brig is that?" commenced the discourse. "The Molly Swash, of New York, Stephen Spike, master." "Where from, and whither bound?"
Some chips thrown overboard floated exactly where they had fallen; and hour after hour, as I looked over the side, there they were. Even a light vane of feathers fastened in the mizzen-rigging hung down. The smoke from the galley fire curled up in a thin blue wreath towards the sky, gradually growing thinner and thinner, but still visible to a great height.
As he laid us athwart-hawse, or as we swung by him, our jib-boom ran into his mizzen-rigging. They say Jones himself then fastened our boom to his mainmast. Somebody did, but it did not hold, but one of our anchors hooked his quarter, and so we fought, fastened together, to the end, both now fighting our starboard batteries, and being fixed stern to stem.
Many still remained on board; more ropes were hove to them; of these several were officers. Warned by the fate of those who had failed to leap on board the Tornado, each of them, as he caught a rope, secured it round his waist; some springing into the main, others into the mizzen-rigging, thus attaining a greater height.
We at once trundled down over the side into our cockleshell of a boat, and, getting on board the "Mouette" with all speed, roused up the anchor and dodged about well in view of the admiral, keeping a sharp lookout for the "whiff" in the mizzen-rigging, which was our especial signal for service.
What could Bunter do? It was awkward for him, you know. He could not go and put his head into the bread-locker. What he did was to take up a position abaft the mizzen-rigging, and stare back as unwinking as the other.
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