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She was a brig, but her mainmast had been snapped short off some 10ft. above the deck, and no effort seemed to have been made to cut away the wreckage, which floated, sails and yards, like the broken wing of a wounded gull upon the water beside her. The foremast was still standing, but the foretopsail was flying loose, and the headsails were streaming out in long, white pennons in front of her.
Now bear straight at the center, master-shipman. Ere yonder sun sets we will bring a red ship back as a gift to our ladies, or never look upon a lady's face again." The art of sailing into a wind had not yet been invented, nor was there any fore-and-aft canvas, save for small headsails with which a vessel could be turned.
The sheets were well flattened, the wind almost abeam, and there was no need to change the set of fore and main. Forward, the men jumped to handle the headsails. The Karluk started to spin about on its keel, instinct to the changing plane of the rudder.
Van Horn broke off with an oath. "Hey! What's the matter along you fella boy?" he shouted to the man at the wheel. For the ketch, under her spanker which had just then been flat-hauled, had come into the wind, emptying her after-sail and permitting her headsails to fill on the other tack. The Arangi was beginning to work back approximately over the course she had just traversed.
"Brail up the foresail. Be smart, lads! Aloft with you and furl the foretopsail, or it will be blown out of the bolt-ropes!" The mainsail was quickly got down. The black crew were pulling and hauling at the brails of the headsails, when a fierce blast struck the vessel. She heeled over to it.
While Lawrence was trying to slacken headway and regain the desired position, the enemy's shot disabled his headsails, and the Chesapeake came up into the wind with canvas all a-flutter.
Now, with little orphan Josie at her side, she came out to see the departure of the fleet. Suddenly there came the squeaking of blocks and the rattle and scrape of rings as foresails were rushed up at peak and throat. Headsails raced into position, and, with the anchors cat-headed; the vessels, with their captains at the wheels or tillers, swung into the wind and began to crawl ahead.
She carried two slender masts with no bowsprit to speak of, having no headsails, and her two tanned wings bellied out while the whole of her fabric pitched and rolled over the white crested waves. The fog was growing denser around us, as if we had been journeying through a swift-moving cloud.
Her larboard quarter next came in contact with the ice, but the severity of the shock saved her; for after the damage which has been described was received, she again bounded off with a cant to starboard. The jib was instantly run up, and it and the other headsails catching the wind, away she glided from the berg.
Scarcely was this finished when the spanker smashed across overhead, the headsails thundered with a sudden filling, and the great mainsail, with all the scope in the boom-tackle caused by Van Horn's giving of the sheet, came across and fetched up to tautness on the tackle with a crash that shook the vessel and heeled her violently to port.
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