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Without turning his head, his right hand unconsciously dropping close to the butt of the automatic, Van Horn commanded: "You fella Tambi. Fetch 'm lantern. No fetch 'm this place. Fetch 'm aft along mizzen rigging and look sharp eye belong you." Tambi obeyed, exposing the lantern twenty feet away from where his captain stood.
Now down with the mizzen sheet! cried the coxswain, and ten men flew to the sheets. As the lifeboat luffed she lay over to her very bearings, beating famously to windward on her second errand of mercy.
We double-reefed the mizzen, and in the wind this was a terrible job. It nearly killed us. At eight o'clock to-night we could not see five feet ahead of us. It was black as hell, and the schooner rolled fearfully. The deck-load then shifted eight inches to starboard. This made a list that frightened us. We were all soaking wet now for days.
"Well, then, slip overboard, if you've a mind, and make shift for yourself." "No, sir, thank you. I'll stand by the ship." The old man grunted satisfaction. "Then say your prayers." He put the whistle between his teeth. The flag he had kept flying, nailed to the splintered mizzen, curled languidly above his head. The old mail, dying in its shadow, eyed it with silent content.
She was ketch-rigged, carrying flying-jib, jib, fore-staysail, main-sail, mizzen, and spinnaker. There were six feet of head-room below, and she was crown-decked and flush-decked. There were four alleged WATER-TIGHT compartments. A seventy-horse power auxiliary gas-engine sporadically furnished locomotion at an approximate cost of twenty dollars per mile.
The ship now gradually righted, and with the aid of a storm-sail in her mizzen rigging, for her top-sail had been torn into shreds, her head was got to the wind. In that latitude gales of this kind are of short duration, generally; and in half an hour from the time it struck the ship there was a calm, smooth sea, and all hands were engaged repairing damages.
Rolling, he's a daisy, ha, ha, ha! Split me, if he ain't, ho, ho, ho! Shorten her down, Trunnell; you're a daisy, and no mistake." There was a distinct smell of liquor in the light breeze, and as the skipper came within the glare of the binnacle lamp I could see he was well set up. Trunnell went to the break of the poop and called out for the watch to clew down the fore and mizzen skysails.
"I've only just joined the service, I tell you." "Ah, you jist wait then," said he, taking this observation of mine for a fresh lead. "I wer' out once, I tells yer, in the brig when the sea wos mountings 'igh, an' the wind Lor'! Yer shood 'a 'errd it blow! It took the mizzen to's'le right clean out of 'er; an' there wos four on us at the wheel, ay, 'sides old Jellybelly."
There was a grinding rending crash and sound of breaking timbers, the vessel quivering from stem to stern; and then, the main and mizzen masts, with all their yards and the sails which had so lately been urging the ship on to her destruction toppled over the sides, whilst a wave, washing back from the base of the iceberg and coming in over the bows, swept the decks fore and aft.
As she did so we became aware of a man standing on her poop, just abaft the mizzen rigging, and the next moment a hail through a speaking- trumpet came pealing across the water. "Ho, the boats ahoy! What boats are those?"
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