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"Why, Sir Jarvy, your honour, she's under her fore and main-taw-sails, close-reefed, with a bit of the main-sail set, as well as I can make it out, sir." "The devil she is! It must be some fellow in a great hurry, to carry that canvass in this blow! Can it be possible, Greenly, that the leading vessel of Bluewater is heaving in sight?"
Like all those who served under Benbow, the carpenter and gunner of his ship, aided by their crews, exerted themselves to the utmost to get the mast finished. They knew that it need not be very shapely, provided the main-sail, which had been saved, could be set upon it. In the course of a couple of hours the little Duck was once more ready to continue her voyage.
He helped him to take Babylon; he killed a whale for him at sea that obstructed his passage; he played the part of a main-sail during a storm, holding out his arms and a great hide; but on coming to shore, a crab bit him in the heel; and behold the lot of the great giant he died! He laughed, and thought it a very little thing, but it proved a mighty one.
But this request came too late, for the wind increasing, raised a great sea, which forced our ship under a reefed main-sail, whence we could not hoist out our boat, without endangering our own lives. However, by means of a light which she carried, we kept close to her, intending to hoist the boat out when it became practicable.
For a moment Wilbur and Moran looked back without speaking. They stood on the quarter-deck; in the shadow of the main-sail, shut off from the sight of the schooner's crew, and for the instant quite alone. "Well, Moran, it's good-by to the old places, isn't it?" said Wilbur at length. "Yes," she said, her deep voice pitched even deeper than usual. "Mate, great things have happened there."
The Hispaniola was under her main-sail and two jibs, and the beautiful white canvas shone in the sun like snow or silver. When I first sighted her, all her sails were drawing; she was lying a course about north-west; and I presumed the men on board were going round the island on their way back to the anchorage.
A rock called La Jument was on our lee bow. Luckily we saw the sea breaking over it. “Port the helm!” called out one of the pilots, “or the ship’s lost. She must bear the main-sail, captain,” added he, “or we shall not weather the island, and she will strike in less than half an hour.” The main-sail was cast loose, and after a severe contest, its unwilling tack and sheet were belayed.
At last, seeing the ship still bore on her course and was now swiftly drawing out of earshot, one of them I know not which it was leapt to his feet with a hoarse cry, whipped his musket to his shoulder, and sent a shot whistling over Silver's head and through the main-sail.
We were so near our side of the bluff, while the ship lay so near the other, that my principal apprehension was of falling to leeward, which might give the French time to muster, and recollect themselves. The canvass, accordingly, was reduced to the fore-sail, though the jib, main-sail, and top-sail were all loose, in readiness to be set, if wanted.
We had been so much accustomed to most severe storms, that we thought the weather tolerable when we could carry a reefed main-sail; as we were often for two or three days together lying-to under bare poles, exposed to the shocks of prodigious waves, more mountainous than any I had ever seen. We now sensibly felt the benefit of our awning, without which we could scarcely have lived.
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