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Updated: July 5, 2025
Everybody was busily engaged in one way or another upon the task of making good the damage to our spars and rigging by the enemy's shot; a strong gang upon the forecastle had already cleared away the wreck of the fore-topmast, having removed from it, practically uninjured, everything that had been attached to it in the shape of other spars, rigging, and so on such, for example, as the topgallant-masts and royal-masts, with their sails, yards, and rigging, the topsail-yard and topsail, the cap, crosstrees, and topmast rigging; and the carpenter and his mates had already got the new spar fitted and ready for pointing; while practically all our cut gear had been either knotted or spliced.
The men-o'-war were all snugged comfortably down, royal and topgallant yards on deck, topgallant-masts struck, and not an ounce of unnecessary top-hamper aloft; but most of the merchantmen had kept everything standing, even to their royal-yards.
The brig carried on, however, till her royal masts went over the side, and her topgallant-masts would have followed had the sails not been handed in time; and now all expectation of escape was abandoned. Still Captain Jones held on his course, remarking, "It will be time enough to heave-to when her shot comes aboard us."
"She's a clipper and no mistake when she has the wind abeam: bears her canvas well, too, for a little un!" he added, with another glance aloft, where the sails could be seen distended to their utmost extent and tugging at the bolt-ropes, while the topgallant-masts were bent almost into a curve with the strain upon them and the stays aft were stretched as tight as fiddle-strings.
The outfly was accompanied by a furious storm of thunder and lightning, the illumination of which was most welcome to us, for it enabled us to see where we were going, and incidentally revealed to us our enemy, the pirate brig, scudding away to leeward under a goose-winged fore-topsail, and with her topgallant-masts struck.
We also sent down royal and topgallant yards and housed the topgallant-masts, in order that, should it by any chance come on to blow heavily from the westward during our absence the ship might ride the more easily at her anchors.
Having secured possession of the brig, and succeeded in coercing me to become their navigator to some island in the Pacific, the locality of which they had as yet kept secret, upon an errand the nature of which they had not seen fit to divulge to me, the crew at once went industriously to work, under O'Gorman, to put the vessel all ataunto once more, by routing out and sending aloft spare topgallant-masts and yards, bending new sails, overhauling and making good the rigging, and, in short, repairing all damage of every description; and with such goodwill did they work that in ten days from the date of their seizure of the brig everything had been done that it was possible to do, and, so far as the outward appearance of the craft was concerned, there was nothing to show that anything had ever been wrong with her.
Captain Toynbee, the late highly respected and admired Marine Superintendent of the British Meteorological Office, has told us how, during a cyclone which he rode out in the HOTSPUR at Sandheads, the mouth of the Hooghly, the three naked topgallant-masts of his ship, though of well-tested timber a foot in diameter, and supported by all the usual network of stays, and without the yards, were snapped off and carried away solely by the violence of the wind.
There was no doubt that the squall had been of exceptional violence, for not only were all the sails blown away, but both topgallant-masts were gone at the caps not only broken off but actually torn away, the rigging that held them having parted.
As soon as she gathered way, her bows began to pay off, and presently she recovered her upright position with a jerk which snapped both her topgallant-masts close off by the caps. The wheel was now righted, and away the Aurora went, scudding dead before it, under her close-reefed fore-topsail only.
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