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Updated: June 19, 2025
Colin had been aboard a man-of-war, but there was no such discipline as this. The words were scarcely spoken, when four of the men had the dory over the starboard rail, while eight of the men tailed on to the painter of the seine-boat and brought it to the port fore-rigging. "Tops'l halyards. Lively now!"
A well-directed kick helped to facilitate liveliness. "What shall I do?" wailed Bennie D., fumbling the pump brake. "How does it go?" "Up and down so." Seth jerked his victim's head up and down, by way of illustration. "Now, then," he continued, "you pump till I say quit, or I'll I swan to man I'll make a spare tops'l out of your hide!"
But for all our resolutions to say nothing to the others about the night's occurrences, we forgot that the tops'l and jib were both set and both drawing. "An' w'at might be the bloomin' notion o' setting the bloomin' kite and jib?" demanded Ally Bazan not half an hour after breakfast.
Three small boats, her full complement, hung in davits. On the bow of these boats, on their oars and buoys, was painted the name of the schooner, "Minnie B." From the port side of the vessel there stretched a long cable patently leading to a sea anchor. All sails were brailed except mains'l and tops'l, which were reefed and set against each other to hold her steady in case of a blow.
"It's the Ruby, sir!" shouted out the signalman, in a voice that could be heard, I believe, at the distance by which our consort was separated from us, making the officer of the watch, Lieutenant Robinson, jump off the deck, he having come up quite close in the meantime. "I knows her by the clew on her tops'l."
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.
Captain Gordon, who was the admiral's flag captain, spoke to him about the poor watermen and bumboat women being robbed of their money by our starting so suddenly; but he could get no satisfaction from old Charley. `Bumboat women be hanged! was all he said. `Let 'em take their payment out of the fore tops'l, and the main topgallant s'l shall be witness to the bargain! With that, he orders the men, who were muttering to be piped down."
We watched and waited breathless for an instant. Then the creature on the foremast laid a hand upon the lashings of the tops'l and undid them. Then it turned, slid to the deck by I know not what strange process, and, still hooded, still shrouded, still lapped about by its mummy-wrappings, seized a rope's end. In an instant the jib was set and stood on hard and billowing against the night wind.
As before, it set the tops'l; as before, it came down to the deck and raised the jib; as before, it passed out of sight amid the confusion of the forward deck. But this time we all ran toward where we last had seen it, stumbling over the encumbered decks, jostling and tripping, but keeping wonderfully close together.
I weighed a hundred an' ninety-seven pounds in the buff an' my chest bulged like a goose-wing tops'l. In them days, I was an evil man to monkey with. I could have taken two like Scraggsy an' chewed 'em up, spittin' out their bones an' belt buckles. I sure was a wonder." "You must ha' been with them red whiskers on your face," McGuffey agreed.
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