Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 13, 2025
Not one hundred yards apart lay the two tugs, rolling and pitching in the seaway; the Fledgling trim and stanch, the Sovereign big and cumbersome, the funnel belching thunderclouds of sepia, her derrick booms creaking and rattling and slatting infernally.
It was for all the world as though some archangel with a huge sword had slashed it with the figure of a cross; all hands ran to secure the slatting canvas; and in the sudden uproar and alert, Tommy Hadden lost his head.
Well, pretty soon the old father wanted to know how Joan felt when she was in the thick of a battle, with the bright blades hacking and flashing all around her, and the blows rapping and slatting on her shield, and blood gushing on her from the cloven ghastly face and broken teeth of the neighbor at her elbow, and the perilous sudden back surge of massed horses upon a person when the front ranks give way before a heavy rush of the enemy, and men tumble limp and groaning out of saddles all around, and battle-flags falling from dead hands wipe across one's face and hide the tossing turmoil a moment, and in the reeling and swaying and laboring jumble one's horse's hoofs sink into soft substances and shrieks of pain respond, and presently panic! rush! swarm! flight! and death and hell following after!
How beautiful they were! How beautiful the world was to one who had been shut up for days in a close little room! How keen and sweet was the wind! And what a pleasant song the creaking of the ropes and the slatting of the sails made! It was a brilliant day. The sun shone with dazzling clearness. The sea was the bluest of the blue. The wind blew steady and strong.
Scarcely was this terrible job well under way when a whack of the slatting sail struck a Kanaka boy from his hold, and he was carried to leeward by the gale as if he had been a bag of old clothes, dropping forty feet from the side into the face of a monstrous billow. He swam for a moment, but the next wave combed over him and he disappeared.
Then he went back to the porthole for the sake of the air, and, because, if he could not have freedom for himself, he could at least see a little way into the open world. The creaking of cordage and slatting of sails increased, he felt the schooner heave and roll beneath him, and then he knew that they were leaving Albany. It was the bitterest moment of his life.
"Hard a-lee!" 'Frisco Kid cried, throwing the tiller down, and following it with his body. "Cast off! That 's right. Now lend a hand on the main-sheet!" Together, hand over hand, they came in on the reefed mainsail. Joe began to warm up with the work. The Dazzler turned on her heel like a race-horse, and swept into the wind, her canvas snarling and her sheets slatting like hail.
"Pullum disa lope, sabe?" Wilbur tugged at the rope the cook indicated. "That's well, y'r peak halyard purchase," chanted Captain Kitchell. Wilbur made the rope fast. The mainsail was set, and hung slatting and flapping in the wind. Next the for'sail was set in much the same manner, and Wilbur was ordered to "lay out on the ji'boom and cast the gaskets off the jib."
"Port your helm," commanded Jack to Arnold who was at the wheel. Dimly the boys made out the bulk of a schooner on their port bow, her sails slatting and rigging flying as she came up into the wind. As the Fortuna fell off they looked at the schooner and saw the main boom swinging across the deck, strike a man standing near the rail. "Man overboard.
Presently the square canvas was all a-shiver, slatting furiously and causing the ship to tremble to her keel. "Raise tacks and sheets!" was the next order; and now came the critical moment and the question Would she hold her way long enough to cant in the proper direction?
Word Of The Day
Others Looking