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Updated: June 7, 2025
Captain Rombold was standing abreast of the stump of his mizzen mast observing the whole affair, and he had a better opportunity to observe it than any other person on the deck of either ship. He had ordered up his men to receive the boarders on the quarter-deck when the gun was discharged, and before he believed it could be done.
These were made fast on deck to the stump of the mizzen mast, and their ends brought to the capstan through snatch blocks. Planks were then strapped loosely on the lines and allowed to run along them freely, being weighted sufficiently to cause them to sink. After they were slung clear of the ship, they were held in position until a pad of canvas and oakum was inserted between them and the side.
"About midnight the wind began to shift about and came in squalls so hard that we could scarcely stand, so we took in the jib and mizzen, and lay to under the foresail. Of course the hatchways was battened down and tarpaulined, for the seas that came aboard was fearful. When I was standin' there, expectin' every moment that we should founder, a sea came and swept Fred Martin overboard.
Not lookin her sauciest just now, I grant you: shrouds tore to tatters, mizzen spliced, bowsprit splintered, plugged fore and aft, and alf her weather bulwark carried away. But that's ex tempore, as the sayin is. We only put in at dawn to refit, and land wounded." "Where's she been?" asked the boy. "Been!" cried the other with rollicking laughter. "That's a good un.
The mainsail was first hoisted, its size greatly surprising the boys; then the foresail and jib were got up, and lastly the mizzen. Then the capstan was manned, and the anchor slowly brought on board, and the sails being sheeted home, the craft began to steal through the water. The tide was still draining up, and she had not as yet swung.
There were a couple of schooners used in the china-clay trade lying at the quayside; at anchor was a barquentine, a big bluff-bellied tramp of a creature, black with coaldust, and beyond her again what was still a rare sight in those parts a steamer. She was a side-wheeler, with a thin raking funnel, and was square-rigged on her fore-mast, fore-and-aft on her mizzen.
We slung the lower masts by means of yards forming props. Later on, West would see to replacing the main and mizzen masts; in any case, we could do without them until we had reached the Falklands or some other winter port. Needless to say, we had set up a camp on the plateau of which I have spoken, not far from the Halbrane.
He swarmed up until he reached the head of the shrouds, when, securing himself, he brought his glass to bear in the direction Billy had pointed. "You are right, Billy," he exclaimed, after taking a steady look through it. "I can make out the fore, main, and the head of the mizzen royals. A large ship too, and, as you say, she is standing this way, with the wind from the eastward.
"There! it wonna urt you, my dear," he said soothingly. "Too suddint." A tricorne rose over the bulwark. An officer cast his eyes up and down the deck, swift and alert as a bird. "Anybody alife on board?" he repeated, and in the vast silence his voice came small and very shrill. He clambered over the bulwark, and came up the steep deck monkey-wise. At the foot of the mizzen he paused.
They gave him a dry pair of long stockings and woollen mittens, and they let down the mizzen and made a lee for him under its shelter, for he was half perished with the cold of that bitter night. After a few minutes he insisted on again searching the sands for his lost crew, and the coxswain and others of the lifeboatmen went with him.
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