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Updated: May 31, 2025
In a few minutes, the topsail yards were manned, and all three of the topsails furled at once. From the fore top-gallant yard, the men slid down the stay to furl the jib, and from the mizen top-gallant yard, by the stay, into the maintop, and thence to the yard; and the men on the topsail yards came down the lifts to the yard-arms of the courses.
As busy swallows about barn-eaves and ridge-poles, some of the Richard's marksmen, quitting their tops, now went far out on their yard-arms, where they overhung the Serapis. From thence they dropped hand-grenades upon her decks, like apples, which growing in one field fall over the fence into another. Others of their band flung the same sour fruit into the open ports of the Serapis.
It did not seem as if it could be Ben Lathrop who was standing shoulder to shoulder with Neddie Benson and old Davie. There was running and calling on all sides and aloft. Blocks were creaking as the men hauled at braces and halyards; and when the ship rolled I saw that the men on the yard-arms were shaking the courses from the gaskets.
He knew that the Spaniard could not escape; but he cursed every moment which lingered between him and that one great revenge which blackened all his soul. The men sate sulkily about the deck, and whistled for a wind; the sails flapped idly against the masts; and the ship rolled in the long troughs of the sea, till her yard-arms almost dipped right and left. "Take care of those guns.
These poor islanders, accustomed to the perfect freedom of the breezes of the ocean, must perish miserably in the course of a few months if compelled to work in the mines, or even in the fields on the mainland." "I think we should be right to hang up their captors at their own yard-arms, and send their vessels to the bottom!" cried Tom indignantly.
Language cannot express the desolation of that thought. Then the scene changed once more. We were again on board the ship, and in the power of the enraged mutineers, about to suffer whatever their vengeance might impel them to inflict. Poor Spot was swinging, a livid corpse, at one of the yard-arms.
"If you don't look sharp, you'll have your topgallant yards through the windows of that 'ere warehouse presently!" This was the only cause of his interest in the ship's beautiful spars. I own that for a time I was struck dumb by the bizarre associations of yard-arms and window-panes.
Two or three minutes passed, and there still lay the ship prone on her side, with her lee topsail and lower yard-arms dipping in the water, she would not pay off.
The anchor was got in without any difficulty, however, when Rupert and I were sent aloft to loose the fore-top-sail. Rupert got into the top via the lubber's hole, I am sorry to say, and the loosing of the sail on both yard-arms fell to my duty. A hand was on the fore-yard, and I was next ordered up to loose the top-gallant-sail.
I was captain of a ship, and her yard-arms were on fire, and we were pouring broadsides into the enemy, afraid any minute that we'd sink. How we did fight that ship!" The young officer's eyes glowed. "And I hope you may some day, John!" he exclaimed. "But the strangest part was that our ship didn't fly the English flag," said the boy.
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