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That wouldn't do, so you had 'em stowed again; and stowed they will be for the rest of the watch, as far as I'm concarned. The night's fine, and the breeze as steady as a breeze can be, and the old barkie 'd carry r'yals and skys'ls too for the matter o' that, but if they was set we should have to stow 'em again five minutes a'terwards; so let 'em be, say I."
"Look 'ee here, Mr Carter," said Boyd, a fine active willing young fellow, stepping a pace or two in front of his messmates, "we thinks as them there r'yals 'll do well enough as they am for the rest of the watch. They was set when we come 'pon deck, and that wouldn't do, you had 'em stowed. Then you warn't satisfied with 'em so, and you had 'em set.
"Well, sir," he replied, "as we told Mr Howard, a few minutes ago, we can't make much out of 'em as yet; they'm too far off for that. But I've got pretty good eyes, Mr Delamere, and I think when you brings that glass o' yours to bear on 'em that you'll find one on 'em's got her r'yals stowed, while t'other has hers set.
As the boys steadily and monotonously drove the raft toward mid-stream it was no doubt understood that these orders were given only for "style," and were not intended to mean anything in particular. "What sail's she carrying?" "Courses, tops'ls, and flying-jib, sir." "Send the r'yals up! Lay out aloft, there, half a dozen of ye foretopmaststuns'l! Lively, now!" "Aye-aye, sir!"
As the boys steadily and monotonously drove the raft toward mid-stream it was no doubt understood that these orders were given only for "style," and were not intended to mean anything in particular. "What sail's she carrying?" "Courses, tops'ls, and flying-jib, sir." "Send the r'yals up! Lay out aloft, there, half a dozen of ye foretopmaststuns'l! Lively, now!" "Aye-aye, sir!"
In twenty minutes, spent anxiously watching her, the ship raised her topsails slowly above the line of blue, and then we saw she really was jammed on the wind and reaching along toward us rapidly. "'Tis the Pirit, an' no mistake!" cried the carpenter. "Look at them r'yals! No one but th' bit av a mate, Trunnell, iver mastheaded a yard like that." "The Pirate!" yelled Johnson, from forward.
And the result proved the soundness of his theory, for on the sixteenth day of our quest, about seven bells in the afternoon watch, the look-out hailed the deck with: "Large sail two points abaft the weather beam, steerin' to the west'ard under stunsails!" "How far away is she?" hailed the skipper. "Her r'yals is just showin' above the horizon, sir," answered the man.
To suppose an Englishman would go to sea with such triangles of royals, he held to be entirely out of the question; and then he referred to me to know if I did not remember the brig "we had licked in the West Indies, last v'y'ge, which had just such r'yals as the chap up there to windward?"