United States or Slovenia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
In such auspicious occasions all watches were his, and he strode the poop perpetually with all age-lag banished from his legs. Margaret and I were with him in the chart-room when he hurrahed the barometer, down to 28.55 and falling. And we were near him, on the poop, when he drove by an east-bound lime-juicer, hove-to under upper-topsails.
"The odds are mighty big against it, sir," he answered. "I'll give you a line on them. I'll wager even, sir, just a nominal bet of a pound of tobacco, that inside twenty-four hours we'll he hove to under upper-topsails.
And all this time, it must not be forgotten, the Elsinore was dashing ahead through the sea. The only sail she carried was three upper-topsails. Not the tiniest triangle of headsail was on her.
I had thought, the manoeuvre of wearing achieved, that we were saved, but this setting of all three upper-topsails unconvinced me. The moon remained hidden, and to leeward nothing could be seen. As each sail was set, the Elsinore was pressed farther and farther over, and I realized that there was plenty of wind left, despite the fact that the gale had broken or was breaking.
"It's beginning to make," he said, in the good old Anglo-Saxon of the sea. And then I heard Mr. Pike snarling out orders, and in my heart discovered a growing respect for Cape Horn Cape Stiff, as the sailors call it. An hour later we were hove to on the port tack under upper-topsails and foresail. The wind had come out of the south-west, and our leeway was setting us down upon the land.
Pamperos happen quickly here, and though the Elsinore, under bare poles to her upper-topsails, is prepared for anything, it may well be that they will be crowding on canvas in another hour. Mr.
Word Of The Day