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Updated: May 22, 2025
"She says that I saved her life and her father's life; but then I saved the lives of many other people. To be sure I have got one step up the ratlins, but it may be very long before I get another. No, no, I'll not think about it."
Look aloft that's up, ye know never mind your feet, but keep tight hold of the ratlins so, with your hands, and when you are up aloft, don't let one hand go till you're sure of your hold with the other."
Cuffe, consequently, was still a young man; and it cost him no great effort to get up his ship's ratlins in the manner named. Once in the top, he had all his eyes about him. For quite a minute he stood motionless, gazing in the direction that had been pointed out by Ben Brown.
In ascending it was difficult to keep the feet on the ratlins, and in descending, it required a strong effort to force the body down towards the centre of gravity. I make no doubt, had I groped my way up to the cross-trees, and leaped overboard my body would have struck the water, thirty or forty yards from the ship. A marlin-spike falling from either top, would have endangered no one on deck.
I tried it myself, and could with difficulty keep my feet on the ratlins. I make no doubt I should have been blown out of the top, could I have reached it, did I let go my hold to do any work. We had sailed in company with the Kensington, a corvette belonging to the Emperor of Russia, and saw a ship, during the gale, that was said to be she.
Again the same panting agitations, mad rage to be at her, at once possessed me; I flew to the indicator, turned the lever to full, then back to give the wheel a spin, then up the main-mast ratlins, waving a long foot-bandage of vadmel tweed picked up at random, and by the time I was within five hundred yards of her, had worked myself to such a pitch, that I was again shouting that futile madness: 'Hullo!
"Ay ay!" answered Le Gros, and then, turning to me, with the rope held in menace, he ordered me to ascend. I had no alternative but obey, and, twisting myself around the topmast shrouds, I caught the ratlins in my hands and commenced climbing upward. I climbed with slow and nervous step.
I was not aware it could be seen from deck?" "Nor can it, sir; but, by going up half-a-dozen ratlins we get a look at it. Captain Drinkwater bowses up his lights to the gaff-end, and I can see him always ten minutes sooner than any other ship in the fleet, under the same circumstances." "Drinkwater is a careful officer; do the bearings of his light alter enough to tell the course he is steering?"
I trust that he will not be found unfitted for the rank to which he may attain if you thus put his foot on the lower ratlins." "I am glad to have hit the thing to please you, Mr Ripley," said the captain.
By keeping the wind abeam, Jack thought he should be going toward the rock of Mulford. In one hour, or even in less time, he expected to reach it, and he was guided by time, in his calculations, as much as by any other criterion. Previously to quitting the brig, he had gone up a few ratlins of the fore-rigging to take the bearings of the fire on Mulford's rock, but the light was no longer visible.
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