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He glanced aloft and saw that her topgallant-masts were whipping and buckling like fishing-rods. "Hillo, Chips," he said good-humouredly, "so you are one of the carrying-on school, I see. But what about those sticks aloft; aren't you trying them rather severely?
"We will clue up every thing, and strike the topgallant-masts. If the wind does not come it will be no great harm, as it will only give the Frenchmen something more to do; and if it does come, and we have all this gear aloft, it will be carried away to a certainty." The order was immediately issued, and the hands flew aloft to carry it out.
Having satisfied for the time being my curiosity with regard to the hull of my future home, I next cast a glance aloft at her spars. She was rigged only as far as her topmast-heads, her topgallant-masts being then on deck in process of preparation for sending aloft.
Yet I could not detect any sign that anything was wrong with her; she was not sitting particularly deep in the water so far as I could judge in the darkness nor did her spars appear to be damaged, except that, as I have already mentioned, her topgallant-masts seemed to have been carried away; there appeared, therefore, to be no reason why we should not venture alongside; and accordingly, as soon as we had stood on far enough to fetch her on the next tack, I hove the boat round and the brig happening to lie broadside-on to the sea ran her alongside to leeward, dousing my sails as we came up abreast the stranger's lee quarter.
The brig was under topgallant-sails, tearing and thrashing through the short choppy sea in a way which sent the spray flying continuously in dense clouds in over her bluff bows, until her decks were mid-leg deep in water, and her stumpy topgallant-masts where whipping about aloft to such an extent that they threatened momentarily to snap off short at the caps.
"They will not stand it they are doing their utmost, sir," was the answer. Still, Jack was determined not to abandon Adair. On board the brig the hands were still aloft sending down topgallant-masts.
The topmasts were carried away close to the caps and hung over the side, with topgallant-masts, yards, sails, etcetera, still attached, a great tangled mass of wreck.
No more will she loiter and pry around anything and everything, from an island to a balk of drift-wood, that comes in her way, knowing not the meaning of "waste of time." The "crow's-nests" are dismantled, taut topgallant-masts sent up, and royal yards crossed.
I stood there on the wharf watching with the keenest interest the scene of bustle and animation on board until the bell rang the hour of noon, and all hands knocked off work and went to dinner; by which time the three topgallant-masts were aloft with the rigging all ready for setting up when the men turned-to again.
The French officer was evidently a good seaman, and did all that could be done under the circumstances for the safety of the ship. The topgallant-masts were struck, and every sail was furled except a closely reefed fore-topsail, with which the ship ran before the gale.
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