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Updated: May 2, 2025
They had been struggling in the Downs all day with two or three reefs, and in the 'smokers' with 'yardarm taken, but in the afternoon the mercury in the barometers began to jump up and First rise after low Foretells a stronger blow.
He had remarked the two ships remaining hotly engaged, yardarm to yardarm out of the line, and he had never lost sight of them altogether. What their condition would be after so desperate and lengthened an encounter he justly surmised, and he at length bore down to aid a friend in capturing an enemy, or to succour one or the other.
For a moment Don Esteban stared at him wide-eyed, incredulous. "I don't believe you," he said at last. "Yet you may. I am a doctor, and I know death when I see it." Again there came a pause, whilst conviction sank into the lad's mind. "If I had known that," he said at last in a thick voice, "you would be hanging from the yardarm of the Encarnacion at this moment." "I know," said Blood.
"Then keep your course, and keep two lights hoisted at your mizzen peak during the night, and blue Peter at the main topsail yardarm when the day breaks; I shall haul my wind after the suspicious sail in your wake." Another shot, and another, from the brig the time between each flash and the report increasing with the distance.
That Old Man is planning something against you. Remember that night on the yardarm! Remember the lady's warning! Look at Nils! I tell you, we'll have to fight! You can depend upon me, I'll back you to the limit in anything. So will the squareheads you know how desperate and bitter they are. So will the stiffs they are just waiting for you to say the word. Every man-jack for'ard will follow you!"
Next morning the skipper hardly puts his head out before he yells the welcome order to set the main lower topsail from the lee yardarm of which a dozen men had nearly gone to Davy Jones's locker only yesterday. He takes a look round; then orders up reefed foresail and the three upper topsails, also reefed. Up goes the watch aloft and lays out on the yard.
"Surely, captain, we can fight them, we've most of us got pistols and cutlasses," said one of the men in a sulky tone. "Fight them!" cried the captain, "they're four times our number, and every man armed to the teeth. If ye don't fancy walking the plank or dancing on nothing at the yardarm, ye'd better pull away and hold your jaw."
Overhead the yardarm blinkers were signaling, and directly over Sara Lee's head a great white searchlight swept the water ahead. The wind was blowing a gale, and the red and green lights of the pilot boat swung in great arcs that seemed to touch the waves on either side. Sara Lee stood beside Mr. Travers, for companionship only.
In this notable adventure he had barely escaped, after a two days' chase, the British frigate Ceres, whose captain, had a capture been effected, would instantly have hung the unfortunate man to the yardarm in spite of the beneficent mission he was in the act of conducting. In all this Eleazer had the air of conducting the case for the defendant.
There was contempt in his voice, and I knew, when I looked at his grim, disdainful face, that he had had no hand in the affair. Bucko Lynch might kill a man in what he considered the line of duty, but snapping men off a yardarm was not his style.
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