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Updated: June 19, 2025
"Yes, sir," answered my "superior officer" humbly enough, touching his cap and looking up at Commander Nesbitt. "Want me, sir?" "Yes," said the other, "There's something wrong with the bunt of that tops'l, I think. It does not appear to me quite ship-shape somehow or other, Mr Larkyns. Go up to the maintop and see what's the matter with it at once."
"Eh!" said the skipper, deliberately removing his pipe from his mouth, and looking around him in the greatest apparent astonishment. Down rushed the squall, howling and whistling through the rigging, careening the brig until the water spouted up through her scuppers, and causing the gear aloft to crack and surge ominously. "Let fly the tops'l halliards, fore and main!" yelled the mate.
"Reef tops'l!" cried Job, looking fiercely at Bunks, "no, we shan't; there's one reef in't, an' that's enough." Bunks shuddered, for he saw by the glare of the murderer's eyes that the evil deed, coupled with his deep potations, had driven him mad. "P'raps it is," said Bunks, in a submissive voice; "but it may be as well to close reef, 'cause the weather don't seem like to git better."
We was three days at Tops'l Cove, with folk aboard every day, tradin' fish. An' Tommy Mib below! We touched Smith's Arm next, sir. Come now, speak fair; did they have it there?" "They're not rid of it yet," said Doctor Luke. "Smith's Arm too!" Docks groaned. "An' Harbour Rim," the skipper added. "Noon t' noon at Harbour Rim," said Docks. "And Highwater Cove," the doctor put in.
"Not includin' sailin' a vessel," sneered the Cap'n, squinting forward with deep disfavor to where the members of the Smyrna Ancient and Honorable Firemen's Association were contentedly fishing over the side of the sluggish Dobson. "Here, leave hands off'm that tops'l downhaul!" he yelled, detecting Ludelphus Murray slashing at it with his jack-knife. "My Gawd, if he ain't cut it off!" he groaned.
"Not a reg'lar gale, 'tain't," he said. "Alongside of some gales I've seen this one ain't nothin' but a tops'l breeze. Do you remember the storm the night the Portland was lost, Martha?" Miss Phipps, who had come in from the kitchen with a can of coffee in her hand, shuddered. "Indeed I do, Zacheus," she said; "don't remind me of it." "Why, dear me, was it worse than this one?" asked Galusha.
They were singing "Spanish Ladies": "We hove our ship to when the wind was sou'west, boys, We hove our ship to for to strike soundings clear; Then we filled our main tops'l and bore right away, boys, And right up the Channel our course did we steer.
Ellery, you remind me of a half-breed Portugee feller half Portugee and a half Indian that went to sea with my father, back in the old days. He hardly ever spoke a word, mainly grunted and made signs. One day he and another fo'mast hand went aloft in a calm to do somethin' to the tops'l.
"Dance a hornpipe," cut in Fred, as Jo paused for breath, "and, as they danced, the rubbishy old castle turned to a man-of-war in full sail. 'Up with the jib, reef the tops'l halliards, helm hard alee, and man the guns! roared the captain, as a Portuguese pirate hove in sight, with a flag black as ink flying from her foremast.
"Svorenssen sung out, of course," replied the boatswain, "but he couldn't leave the wheel, for 'twas pipin' up a freshish breeze on our port quarter, and we was doin' about seven, or seven and a half knots, with topmast and lower stunsails set to port, and of course we had to take 'em in, clew up the royal and to'ga'ntsail, and haul down the gaff- tops'l before we could round to; and that took us so long that at last, when we'd brought the hooker to the wind, hove her to, and had got the jolly-boat over the side, we knowed that it'd be no earthly use to look for either of 'em.
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