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Updated: July 5, 2025
"Oh, they're goodish sticks, sir, are them topgallant-masts, and the skipper's a rare hand for carryin' on; she ain't no clipper, as I dare say you've noticed, sir; but the cap'n makes a p'int of gettin' every inch out of her as she's capable of doin' of. All the same, sir, I believe it's about time them royals was took in."
"That's bad," said the other; "it shows we've not got the worst of the cyclone yet." "No," replied the captain; "we've got that all to come! Luckily, I sent down the topgallant-masts yesterday evening, or we'd have had every stick out of her by now: they would have been safe to go when the foretop-mast went, if not before.
She was not a large vessel; about two hundred tons or thereabouts, apparently; painted all black down to her copper, excepting a narrow red ribbon which marked the line of her sheer. She was hove-to on the port tack under a storm-staysail, and her topgallant-masts were down on deck.
"Not quite so sure of that, boy," observed Peter Ogle, who had come upon the forecastle. "Two of our own ships, you see, are no better off; and several have lost their topmasts and topgallant-masts. Still they are right bravely doing their duty. I've never seen warmer work in my day. Have you, Paul?" "No.
I remember relieving the deck one night after eight o'clock, when the captain was carrying on the duty, and shortening sail upon the quick approach of a severe gale, and being an old sailor for my age, being then sixteen, he ordered me to the mizentop, to close reef and furl the mizen-topsail; and this being done, from the increase of the gale, we had before twelve o'clock to take in successively every reef, furl most of the sails, and strike the topgallant-masts and other spars, to make the ship snug; the midshipmen being on the yards as well as the men, and the captain, when the gale became severe, at their elbow.
"I have this moment come from aloft, and I saw her topgallant-masts most distinctly over the top of the mist. She is away over in that direction, and scarcely a cable's length distant from us." "Are you quite sure?" he asked, aroused at last by my earnest manner to something like interest. "I can hear no sound of her."
It may be added that the shorter and lighter masts, by a common optical effect, increased the impression of the vessel's length and swiftness, as was the case with the old-time sailing-frigate when her lofty topgallant-masts were down on deck. Under sail alone the Iroquois could never accomplish anything, except with a fair wind.
Later on, as the gale slackened, we set our topsails close-reefed, and more `fore-and-aft' sail; and, when the sun had got above our foreyard, the commodore ordered the topgallant-masts to be sent up, these having been housed when it came on to blow heavily.
The difficulty of entering the harbour was increased in consequence of several vessels, some of which had brought up off it, others having been drifted in that direction. The Tornado's head was accordingly brought round during a lull, and with topgallant-masts on deck and yards pointed to the wind she stood off-shore.
Here was to be seen a craft with topgallant-masts and jib-boom gone, and her canvas hanging from her yards in long tattered streamers; there another with nothing standing above her lower mastheads; here a barque with her main-yard carried away; there a stately ship with her mizzenmast and all attached still towing astern, and the crew busy cutting away at the rigging which held the shattered spar; here another fine ship, totally dismasted; and there, now far astern, more than one dark object lying low in the water, and but imperfectly seen through the flying spindrift, which George Leicester knew only too well were the hulls of ships which had capsized, and whose crews would be left to perish miserably, since no human power could possibly save them in an hour like that.
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