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Updated: May 22, 2025
Once or twice we returned to the Hoogley to refit, and on one occasion we were sent round to Madras and Bombay on special service. We were running down the Coromandel coast; the wind fell, and we lay, rolling our lower yardarms under in a long heavy swell, which came moving onwards in giant undulations towards the coast.
Recovering her equilibrium, the ship started through the brine, and as the succeeding roller came on, she was urging ahead fast. Still, the sea struck her abeam, forcing her bodily to leeward, and heaving the lower yardarms into the ocean. Tons of water fell on her decks, with the dull sound of the clod on the coffin.
"I don't want the ships to be bilge to bilge," said Howe to the officers of his flagship, the Queen Charlotte, "but if you can lock the yardarms, so much the better; the battle will be the quicker decided." The approach was leisurely, nearly in line abreast, on a course slightly diagonal to that of the enemy.
The poor little brig seemed to shudder, like a sentient thing, as the great wall of water crashed down upon her, burying her to the foremast; and then I saw the whole mast buckle like a fishing-rod when a strong, heavy fish begins to fight for his life, there was a crash of timber as the topmast snapped short off at the cap, and the next instant away went the whole of the top-hamper over the side, flinging far into the raging sea the four unfortunates who had remained clinging to the yardarms!
Garachico was the only port in Tenerife, with a breakwater of rocky isle and water so deep that the yardarms of men-of-war could almost touch the vineyards. Its quays were bordered by large provision-stores, it had five convents, and its slopes were dotted with villas.
When in its place it was neatly painted, or tarred, much as one may see it in Norwegian ships at the present day. The yardarms, and possibly the chains, were at one time fitted with heavy steel sickles, projecting outboard, which were kept sharp, so that, when running alongside an enemy, they might cut her rigging to pieces. These sickles were known as sheer-hooks.
But it was inconceivable to me that it had discovered the Nautilus at such a distance, still less that it knew what this underwater machine really was. Soon the Canadian announced that the craft was a big battleship, a double-decker ironclad complete with ram. Dark, dense smoke burst from its two funnels. Its furled sails merged with the lines of its yardarms.
English writers boasted of the forest of masts and yardarms which covered the river from the Bridge to the Tower, and of the stupendous sums which were collected at the Custom House in Thames Street.
The wreck was a French brig, the D'Artagnan, as was afterwards ascertained, and on coming close it was seen her masts were still standing, but leaning over so that her yardarms touched the water. Nothing could live long on her deck, which was half under water and swept by breakers.
Still we all bowled along together, but her yards were not squared, nor her sails set with her customary precision, and her lurches became more and more sickening, until at length she rolled so heavily, that she dipped both yardarms alternately in the water, and reeled to and fro like a drunken man. "What is that splash?"
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