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Updated: June 13, 2025
Oh, well, you're a man." But when they turn the corner that gives them a good view of the blaze, fluttering great puffs of flame, and hear the steady crackle and snapping, as it were, of a great popper full of pop-corn, they, too, catch the infection, and run with a loud swashing and slatting of skirts, giggling and squealing about their hair coming down.
When I trotted, I rattled like a crate of dishes, and that annoyed me; and moreover I couldn't seem to stand that shield slatting and banging, now about my breast, now around my back; and if I dropped into a walk my joints creaked and screeched in that wearisome way that a wheelbarrow does, and as we didn't create any breeze at that gait, I was like to get fried in that stove; and besides, the quieter you went the heavier the iron settled down on you and the more and more tons you seemed to weigh every minute.
The yacht heeled over almost on her beam ends, and a great wail went up from the seasick passengers as they swept across the cabin floor in a tangled mass and piled into a heap in the starboard bunks. But we had no time for them. The yacht, completing the manoeuvre, headed into the wind with slatting canvas, and righted to an even keel.
The shivering and slatting of the canvas, with the accompanying tremor of the hull, ceased, and the long, easy, floating plunges and soarings were resumed as she again settled easily into her stride. "Long gun all ready, sir," reported Simpson when at length I stepped out on deck fully dressed. "Shall we try a shot?" "Too far off," said I; "we should not get anywhere near her.
The head of the staysail mounted in thunder, and the slatting of its folds and the thrashing of its sheet was like the rattling of heavy field-pieces whisked at full gallop over a stony road. "High enough!" I bawled, guessing enough was shown, for I could not see. "Get a drag upon the sheet, lads, and then aft with you for your lives!"
Then let him be hooked into a triple Boston backing hitch and snake a truck down West Street, with the whiffle-trees slatting in front of him, the spreader-bar rapping jig time on the poles, and the gongs of street-cars and automobiles and fire-engines and ambulances all going at once. Noise? Let him mix in a Canal Street jam or back up for a load on a North River pier!
We couldn't see the courses above the mist; but Jessop says they were loosed too and sheeted home along with the upper sails. Then we saw the yards squared and I saw the sails fill bang up with wind; and yet, you know, ours were slatting. The next thing was the one that hit me more than anything. Her masts took a cant forrard, and then I saw her stem come up out of the mist that was round her.
Up on deck brother Bartholomew, who has developed some grievous complaint of the jaws and teeth complaint not known to us more particularly, but dreadful enough from that description does his duty also, with that heroic manfulness that has marked his whole career; and somewhere in the ship young Ferdinand is sheltering from the sprays and breaking seas, finding his world of adventure grown somewhat gloomy and sordid of late, and feeling that he has now had his fill of the sea . . . . Shut your eyes and let the illusions of time and place fade from you; be with them for a moment on this last voyage; hear that eternal foaming and crashing of great waves, the shrieking of wind in cordage, the cracking and slatting of the sails, the mad lashing of loose ropes; the painful swinging, and climbing up and diving down, and sinking and staggering and helpless strivings of the small ship in the waste of water.
Widening horizons, slatting of cords and sails in the wind, storms and stars and strange landfalls and long idle calms, thunder of surges, tingle of spray, and eternal labouring and threshing and cleaving of infinite waters these were to be his portion and true home hereafter.
I know the truth. Do you hear me, Angus? I know the truth, and you cannot silence me with lies!" A door closed. "Now we will continue our examination," said Captain Swope. Just then I heard a faint slatting of canvas aloft. I sped for the wheel, and when, an instant later, the tradesman, Morton, poked his head above the level of the poop, and looked aft, I had the ship steady again.
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