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Updated: June 27, 2025
She therefore made excellent progress to the southward after parting from the friendly whaler. It was about a week later that the brig, thrashing along to the southward, close-hauled, and with her fore topgallantsail and main royal stowed, experienced a thrillingly narrow escape from destruction. It was just two bells in the first watch, that is to say nine o'clock p.m.
A few minutes later, from behind the belt of trees and scrub that extended along the whole southern shore of the islet, I beheld the end of the brigantine's flying-jib-boom slide into view, with the flying- jib, recently hauled down, napping loosely in the wind; then followed the rest of the spar, with the standing jib also hauled down, and a couple of men out on the boom, busily engaged in stowing it; then her fore-topmast staysail, beautifully cut and drawing like a whole team of horses, swept into view, followed by the fore part of a very handsome hull bearing the foremast, with the topsail still set, the topgallantsail and royal clewed up and in process of being furled, and the course hanging from the foreyard in graceful festoons.
It was a brilliant morning, with the trade wind piping up to the tune of half a gale; yet the little ship was showing her topgallantsail to it, and sheering through the rather short, choppy sea like a mad thing, with her yards braced hard in against the lee rigging, and the lower half of her foresail dark with spray, while the white foam hissed and seethed and raced past her to leeward at a pace that made one giddy to look at.
She was a deep-waisted vessel, with three masts, the foremast and mainmast square-rigged, while the aftermast carried a long lateen-shaped sail called the mizen, with a square topsail and topgallantsail. The mainsail and foresail having been brailed up and handed, Owen ordered the crew aloft to furl the main-topsail.
The men sprang to the ropes with a will, but ere they had begun to cast them off from the cleats an ominous sound was heard from aloft, and, splitting from clew to earring, our poor topgallantsail blew clean out of the boltropes with a loud crack as if a gun had been fired off, the fragments floating away ahead of us, borne on the wings of the wind like a huge kite, until it disappeared in the dark chiaraoscura of the distant horizon, where heaven and sea met amid the shadows of night.
It appeared to sink into a deeper gloom afterward, but in another moment we heard the distant boom of thunder. Before we could get the topgallantsail set there was a blinding flash off the bow-port, followed by a deep rolling peal of thunder. I was standing in the waist and sprang to Trunnell's room "All hands!" I bawled.
Now, we were well within the limits of the north-east trade-winds, the wind at the moment blowing, as nearly as might be, due north-east, and piping up strong enough to make us think twice before setting our topgallantsail; it was therefore perfectly ideal weather for so powerful a craft as the Virginia, which might dare not only to show all three of her topgallantsails but also, perhaps, her main-royal.
Before nightfall on that first day they were scudding under foresail, topsail and topgallantsail and maintopsail, with the spanker furled as useless, and the jib adding its aid to the foretopmast-staysail in keeping the brig before the quartering seas which occasionally climbed aboard.
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