United States or Sudan ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
We could not see his face, but from his tone I knew he was smiling. "Do I look like one? Not yet, I hope. I was just about to turn over the wheel to the lad, sir, when he shied at the shadow of the mizzen stays'l I think and rushed away forward." "What is wrong, Mister?" inquired the captain's soft voice. Aye, we all jumped as if it were the ghost talking.
"Give her the stays'l. Run up the balloon, too!" Colin gasped, but he lent a hand. As the Shiner felt the added sail she poked her nose in and took the water green. But the narrow build forward threw off the load, and she rose like a duck.
Herrick followed him; he could scarce recall the violence of his late emotions, but he felt there was a scene to go through, and he was anxious and even eager to go through with it. The captain, turning at the house end, met him face to face, and averted his eyes. 'We've lost the two tops'ls and the stays'l, he gabbled. 'Good business, we didn't lose any sticks.
It was the first and last time that I have ever seen a smoking sea. The ocean boiled white. Far out in the wake of the tide that had caught us foam smoked on the track of the ploughing waters. Waters did I say? You could not see waters for the spray. Then Jean bade me look how the stays'l had been torn to flutters, and we both set about righting decks.
The halyards could be heard whirring up toward the sky, while two bunches of us sagged and lifted on the deck below. Among us it was, "Now then o-ho sway away good," until topsails were flat as boards, and the schooner, hauled up, had heeled to her scuppers. "Slap the stays'l to her and up with the balloon. Half the fleet's driving to the no'the'ard. Lively." The Johnnie liked that rarely.
But there's a mighty fine cure for all that. Aye, 'tis a bracin', healthful cure." "Tell me, Mr. Bludson. You know I might get seasick, too." "Ye be bound to. Then cap'n 'e'll say lay forrid there and trice up that fo'topmast stays'l brace; and there you is first 'e know fifty feet above the fo' s'l boom, a takin' a good look of an hour or so at old Neptune.
'Twas the skipper that sailed the ship, too, drove her like he'd always done: all the time eatin' an' sleepin' in the forecastle, where poor Tommy Mib lay sick o' the smallpox. But we o' the crew kep' our distance when the ol' man was on deck; an' they was no rush for'ard t' tend the jib an' stays'l when it was 'Hard a-lee! in a beat t' win'ard no rush at all.
And when we got there, came from the skipper, "Take in the balloon, tie it up and put it below. Haul down your stays'l too and go aloft a couple of you, fore and aft, and put the tops'ls in gaskets." We attended to that a gang out on the bowsprit, half a dozen aloft and so on with the skipper to the wheel while it was being done.
I jumped to attend to the painter just as Clancy's voice broke in from above: "Swing her off about two points, ease your main sheet and keep an eye on that light to looard. Off, off that's good hold her and Joe, slack stays'l and then foretops'l halyards. Be ready to let go balloon halyards and stand by down-haul. Look alive."
No wonder we can't catch 'em! Burns has got stays'l set, and I think Tanner has, too. Couldn't see Martin. Set stays'l, all hands!" Under the driving of Ellinwood the staysail was set, and from then on the Charming Lass sailed on her side. At every roll her sheerpoles were buried, and it seemed an open question whether she would ever come up or not.
Word Of The Day