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Here I am, kickin' my heels around port and my schooner feedin' barnacles off the breakwater, all 'cause ye've got somethin' chafin' yer top-hamper. I won't stand for it no more." "But I got a man to take us," pleaded Dinshaw, going after him. "A man said he'd charter the Nuestra and we'd all go. Two men and a lady it was, up at the "
The four galleys were similar to the galeasses in every respect except that of size, in which they were by one-third inferior. All the ships of the fleet galeasses, galleys, galleons, and hulks were so encumbered with top-hamper, so overweighted in proportion to their draught of water, that they could bear but little canvas, even with smooth seas and light and favourable winds.
"In what way?" "Top-hamper," said Dick shortly. "But she's a terror all the same." "What's her name, I wonder?" "Sakes! You don't say you don't know the old Devastation? Why, it's fifteen years or so since they launched her at Portsmouth, and I hear tell she'll have to be reconstructed, though even then I guess they won't trust her far at sea. She has no speed, either, for these days.
When he again took up the thread of his fancy the ship seemed to be lying on her beam ends on the sand; the strange arrangement of her upper deck and top-hamper, more like a dwelling than any ship he had ever seen, was fully exposed to view, while the seamen seemed to be at work with the rudest contrivances, calking and scraping her barnacled sides.
The stern of the barque, now buried beneath the surge, seemed at once to lose all its buoyancy, and, powerfully depressed by the leverage of the topsails on the masts, plunged at once deeply below the surface of the hungrily leaping sea, the rest of the hull following so quickly that, before the horrified spectators in the Flying Fish's pilot-house fully realised what was happening, the entire hull had disappeared, the masts, yards, and top-hamper generally only remaining in sight a moment longer, as though to impress upon them unmistakably the fact that a ship was foundering before their eyes.
It cleared away at one stroke masts, sails, and all the lofty top-hamper which since time immemorial had seemed as much an essential feature of the fighting ship as the guns themselves. It transformed the design of the fighting ship from the older ideals expressed in the American frigate "Constitution," or the English "Victory," to the simplest terms of offence, defence, and steam motive-power.
They demanded that we go down and quell the disturbance. Well, we did not go down. We did other things. "It was I who suggested to the skipper the advisability of cutting away the connections that held those spars and sails aloft, so that they would drop down and free the ship of the extra top-hamper.
He expressed his pleasure at my kindness by a glance from his sunken eyes that told of a warm heart, even if it beat within the breast of a robber. "Thank you, matey," the old man said; "but it's of little use to try and right the hull when there's a shot between wind and water, and the top-hamper is gone. Nevertheless, I take it in kindness."
A healthy, active, and skilful crew, justly proportioned spars, little top-hamper, and an excellent trim, with a superabundance of light sails, offered all the advantages his experience could suggest.
You look like you'd had a stroke," declared the captain. "Why wouldn't she, the dear child?" cried Prudence. "What do you suppose is the matter with that girl? Is she crazy?" "Crazy ain't no name for it," her husband rejoined. "Her top-hamper is all askew, I cal'late. I never see the beat." But just now Sheila could not endure any discussion of the strange girl.
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