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Updated: May 31, 2025
The seamen took but little notice of the new hands, though some of them had been much of the same description themselves, but were not very fond of acknowledging this, or of talking of their previous histories; they had, however, got worked into shape by degrees: and the newcomers, even those with the "long togs," by the time they had gone through the same process would not be distinguished from the older hands, except, maybe, when they came to splice an eye, or turn in a grummet, when their clumsy work would show what they were; few of them either were likely ever to be the outermost on the yard-arms when sail had suddenly to be shortened on a dark night, while it was blowing great guns and small arms.
In this operation they always begin at the mast-head, and work down, tarring the shrouds, backstays, standing parts of the lifts, the ties, runners, &c., and go out to the yard-arms, and come in, tarring, as they come, the lifts and foot-ropes.
Away the ship plunged through the seas more furiously than ever, bending down till it seemed as if her yard-arms literally touched the foaming tops of the seas as they came rolling and hissing by. Every officer was at his post: the captain, with his lips compressed and teeth clenched, stood watching, now the bending masts, now the compass, now the dark threatening land.
Away went the line of men who had manned the starboard whip, and away went Jemmy Ducks on the larboard side, and at the yard-arms of the cutter were suspended the bodies of Vanslyperken and Snarleyyow. Thus perished one of the greatest scoundrels and one of the vilest curs which ever existed. They were damnable in their lives, and in their deaths they were not divided.
O'Brien perceiving this, pointed out to Mr Phillott that we should first attack the boats, and afterwards board on the side to which they pulled; as, in all probability, there would be an opening left in the boarding nettings, which were tied up to the yard-arms, and presented a formidable obstacle to our success.
Leaning back, he bared his teeth and laughed ferociously. Here was a plot to take the ship! Although we probably had missed the fine points of it, we could not mistake its general character. "Ay," said Blodgett, as if we had been discussing the matter for hours, "but we'll be a pack of bloody pirates to be hanged from the yard-arms of the first frigate that overhauls us." It was true.
Did ye ever hear tell o' George the Third, King of England, Alcestis, or ain't he known over to the crambry medders? Well, once upon a time men used to go through the forests over here an' slash a mark on the trunks o' the biggest trees. That was the royal sign, as you might say, an' meant that the tree was to be taken over to England to make masts an' yard-arms for the King's ships.
From that period the ship, being thrown dead off the wind, has continued her terrific course due south, with every rag of canvas packed upon her, from her trucks to her lower studding-sail booms, and rolling every moment her top-gallant yard-arms into the most appalling hell of water which it can enter into the mind of a man to imagine.
Now the Isle of Orleans was vanishing on our rear and the bold heights of Point Levis had loomed up to the fore; and now we had poked our prows to the right and the sluggish, muddy tide of the St. Charles lapped our canoes, while a forest of masts and yard-arms and flapping sails arose from the harbor of Quebec City.
The middies and the sailors, delighted with the chance, rigged out a dozen or twenty lines from the jib-boom end, and spritsail yard-arms, with hooks baited merely with bits of tin, the glitter of which resembles so much that of the body and wings of the flying-fish, that many a proud dolphin, making sure of a delicious morsel, leaped in rapture at the deceitful prize.
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