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But I, who have seen fleets of two and three deckers and that of all nations, except your Mohawks, mayhap, whose cruisers I will confess never to have fallen in with lying as snug as so many white gulls, under reefed mainsails, know how to take the strain off a ship, and to keep my bulkheads in their places." "I deny the judgment of heaving-to a boat under her after square-sails," retorted Dick.
Hitherto the ship had been kept in her first position by backing and filling the mizen-topsail, but now she came to, and eventually came round: but Captain Saumarez, whose presence of mind never forsook him, brailed up the mizen, and, by keeping all the square-sails aback, gave the ship a stern-board; at the same time, by keeping the helm up, she wore round on her heel, obtaining a position under the stern and on the starboard quarter, while the enemy was lying with his yards square and totally unmanageable.
There was a brigantine with all her courses set, three jibs, stay-sails, square-sails, main and fore-sails, and gaff-top-sail, looking hanging and listless in that calm place, and wedded to a still copy of herself, mast-downward, in the water; there were three lumber-schooners, a forty-ton steam-boat, a tiny barque, five Norway herring-fishers, and ten or twelve shallops: and the sailing-craft had all fore-and-aft sails set, and about each, as I passed among them, brooded an odour that was both sweet and abhorrent, an odour more suggestive of the very genius of mortality the inner mind and meaning of Azrael than aught that I could have conceived: for all, as I soon saw, were crowded with dead.
As the fore and main masts of a "ship" are exactly similar to those of a barque, which have been already described, we shall content ourself with remarking that the mizzen-mast is similar in nearly all respects to the other two, except that it is smaller. Above all these a "ship" sometimes puts up small square-sails called the royals; and, above these, sky-sails.
And now, as the distance between the shores gradually became narrower, the travellers saw the value of the long tapering spars the captain ran up, to bear each a couple of square-sails sky-scrapers he called them.
Then the top-sail was let fall, and presently all the upper square-sails were sheeted home, and hoisted, and the fore-tack was hauled aboard. The Molly was soon alive, and jumping into the seas that met her with more power than was common, as she drew out from under the shelter of the reef into rough water.
Everywhere this sea was studded with islets and knolls, which grew fewer and smaller as the floods increased. Here and there piles of floating firewood looked like boats with square-sails in the distance, while deserted huts passed over the plains with the stream like fleets of Noah's arks!
She could not understand at first; thought it must have something to do with Young Zeb, whose arms were binding hers, and whose breath was hot on her neck. She felt his grasp relax, and faced about. Full in front, standing out as the faint moon showed them, motionless, as if suspended against the black sky, rose the masts, yards, and square-sails of a full-rigged ship.
While this was doing, the two vessels were fast drawing nearer to each other, and were soon within gun-shot. But, no one on board the Rancocus knew what to make of the evolutions of the Mermaid. Most of her ordinary square-sails were set, though not one of them all was sheeted home, or well hoisted.
In the river we found a fine bark of about fifty tons, with as much new plank in her as would have built another of equal size; and we took another of about ten tons, laden with plantains. This we resolved to retain, instead of a long-boat. She had two masts and two square-sails, and having fitted her for our purpose, we called her the Dragon.
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