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Updated: June 17, 2025
We all ceased pulling, and listened intently; but the noise of the waves and the whistling of the winds were all the sounds we heard. "What's that floating on the water?" said one of the men, suddenly. "Where away?" cried every one eagerly. "Right off the lee-bow there, don't you see it?" At that moment a faint cry came floating over the black water, and died away in the breeze.
The mate told us two or three more stories, and a lot of us were gathered round him, listening eagerly, for there is nothing Jack likes so much as a good yarn, when all of a sudden, the man at the mast-head sang out that a large sperm whale was spouting away two points off the lee-bow. Of course we were at our posts in a moment. "There she blows! there she breaches!" sung the look-out.
"The York is close on our weather-beam, edging in to her station; but I can make out nothing ahead of us, though I was on the yard twenty minutes." "Did you look well on the weather-beam, and thence forward to the lee-bow?" "I did, sir; if any light is in view, better eyes than mine must find it."
At six o'clock in the morning, we got again under sail, with a fresh breeze at E., and stood away N.N.W. for some low islands in that direction, but were soon obliged to haul close upon a wind to weather a shoal which we discovered upon our larboard bow, having at the same time others to the eastward: By the time we had weathered this shoal to leeward, we had brought the islands well upon our lee-bow, but seeing some shoals run off from them, and some rocks on our starboard-bow, which we did not discover till we were very near them, I was afraid to go to windward of the islands, and therefore brought-to, and having made the signal for the pinnace, which was ahead, to come on board, I sent her to leeward of the islands, with orders to keep along the edge of the shoal, which ran off from the south side of the southermost island, sending the yawl at the same time, to run over the shoal in search of turtle.
Still we were useful in protecting the trade, and O'Brien had a letter of thanks from the merchants, and a handsome piece of plate upon his quitting the station. We had made sail for Barbadoes two days, and were within sight of the island of Trinidad, when we perceived six sail on the lee-bow.
At half-past three she first discovered on her lee-bow the two frigates, which had observed her three hours before, and were steering a course nearly parallel to her own, to cut her off from the land. The wind had now increased to a gale, and the sea was fast rising. At half-past four the enemy carried away her fore and main-topmasts in a heavy squall.
"Sail ho!" shouted I, as I caught a glimpse of the royals of a vessel gleaming snowy white in the brilliant sunshine far away in the south- western board. "Where away?" shouted Bob. "Broad on our lee-bow," I answered, still clinging to the thin wire topmast shrouds. "What d'ye make her out to be, Harry, my lad?" was the next question.
Moreover it was almost as bad ahead, for although Point du Raz, some seven miles distant, then bore nearly three points on the lee-bow, we knew that stretching out to seaward from that point there was a dangerous reef, with only a comparatively narrow passage between it and the equally dangerous reef stretching out to the southward and eastward from the Isle de Seins, and it was an open question whether we should be able to fetch that passage and pass through it.
I thought that the flood had made, and that it took us a little on our lee-bow, hawsing us up to windward. Just as I had got the last lanyard fastened, the canoes began to appear, coming round the island by the farther passage, and promising to overtake us in the course of the next twenty minutes. The crisis demanded decision, and I determined to get the jib on the ship.
I shall weigh, with my yards square, and keep them so, until the ship has drawn out of the fleet, and then I shall luff up on a taut bowline and on the starboard tack, bringing the ebb well under my lee-bow. This will hawse the ship over towards Morlaix, and bringing us quite as far to windward as is desirable.
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