CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN.
THE LOSS OF THE "JUANITA."
A fortnight was very pleasantly spent by us at the island, during theprogress of the repairs, the good people of Bridgetown vieing with eachother in their efforts for our amusement, a ball also upon a very grandscale being given in our honour by the officers of the garrison; andthen all defects being made good, we once more put to sea.
We appeared by this time to have come to the end of our run of goodluck, however; for, though we most assiduously worked the entirearchipelago, not a sign of an enemy could we find.
At length, the period of our cruise having expired, we bore up andreturned to Port Royal, where Captain Annesley was received by theadmiral with effusion.
The frigate remained at anchor in the harbour ten days, during which allhands indulged in a little welcome recreation, the officers attendingquality balls, shooting, and visiting at various estates belonging tonew-made, but most hospitable Kingstonian friends.
I had accepted an invitation from a Mr Finnie--whose acquaintance I hadmade on my previous visit to Kingston--to spend a few days on his estateamong the Blue Mountains and enjoy a little shooting on a small lakeadjoining it; and in my indefatigable pursuit of this amusement Imanaged to contract a severe attack of yellow fever.
I was most kindly and carefully nursed through it by Mrs Finnie, and itwas chiefly owing to her unceasing attention, under God, that Irecovered at all. I was ill for weeks, what with the fever, a relapse,and the terrible prostration which followed; and when at length I wasable once more to crawl about, the "Astarte" had been long gone to seaupon a sort of roving commission, from which it was quite uncertain whenshe would return.
Under such circumstances the time soon began to hang heavily on myhands, and I longed for a sniff of the pure salt sea-breeze, once more.I was therefore greatly delighted when, on calling at the country houseof the admiral--to whom I had been introduced by Captain Annesley--thefollowing conversation occurred.
"Ah! Chester," said the admiral, "glad to see you on your pins oncemore; you have had a very narrow squeak of it, I hear."
"Indeed I have, sir," I replied. "So narrow was it that they had mycoffin all ready built for me. I have managed to weather upon YellowJack this time, however, thank God; and now, if I could only get to seaagain, I believe I should soon pull round and completely recover mystrength."
"Ah! say you so? It is quite likely." The old gentleman was silent fora few minutes, and then, turning abruptly to me, he said,--
"Have you heard that the `Juanita'--that pirate brigantine which the`Astarte' took among the Roccas--has been brought to Port Royal, andthat we are putting a new foremast in her and converting her into atopsail schooner?"
"No, sir, I have not," I replied. "Indeed I have heard _nothing_ inconnection with naval matters, for I have not yet been as far asKingston."
"Umph! Well, we _are_ doing so," he said. "How do you think the changewill affect her?"
"I believe it will be a great improvement. All that heavy gear forwardmust, I am sure, have been detrimental to her sailing powers, especiallyin a sea-way."
"To be sure it was. Couldn't have been otherwise. Then you approve ofthe change?"
"Yes, sir, certainly," I replied, wondering why on earth so great apersonage should attach any importance to the opinion of a midshipman.
"Ah! I am glad of that," returned the admiral; "because, since you haveexpressed a wish to go to sea again, the idea has come into my head togive her to you--that is to say, until the `Astarte' comes in again."
I murmured something--I hardly knew what--by way of thanks, to which theadmiral kindly replied,--
"There, there; don't say a word about it, my dear boy. Annesley hastold me all about you, and if the half of what he says be true, I knowof no one who is better fitted for the trust than yourself. Besides, Ihave really nobody else to place in charge. If you feel well enough,you had better run down on board in the course of a day or two, and seehow matters are going on. Now come away into the other room and havesome lunch."
On the following morning, directly after breakfast, I started in MrFinnie's ketureen for Kingston, and, reaching the wharf about noon,chartered that fast-sailing clipper, the "Fly-by-night," to convey me toPort Royal. The jabber of the black boatmen and the exhilaratingsensation of being once more afloat had quite a tonic effect upon myspirits, which rose higher and higher as we tore down past thePalisades, the boat careening gunwale-to, with the hissing, sparklingfoam seething past and trailing away in a long wake astern.
When I got on board the "Juanita," I found that they had just steppedthe foremast, and a most beautiful spar it was, without a knot in it,and as straight as a ray of light.
Fisher, the dockyard foreman, was on board, superintending operations,and from him I learned that it was intended to make some slightalterations in the armament of the craft; for, whereas when captured shecarried four long-sixes of a side, it was now proposed to alter theposition of the ports, reducing their number to three, and bringing themmore toward the middle or waist of the vessel, and mounting three long-nines on each side instead of the four sixes, thus removing the weightfrom the two ends, and adding three pounds to the weight of herbroadside. It was also proposed to take away the long-nine fromforward, and to substitute for it a long-eighteen between the masts.
These alterations accorded strictly with my own views upon the subject,and were precisely what I should have suggested, had I been asked.There had been some little talk about increasing the height of herbulwarks, but this, I was glad to hear, had been overruled; for it wouldcertainly have gone far toward spoiling her light, jaunty, gracefulappearance.
It took the dockyard people just another week to complete the proposedalterations, during which I visited the craft every morning, returningto my quarters at Mr Finnie's in time for their six o'clock dinner. Onthe day week after my first visit she was out of Fisher's hands, and asI left her late that afternoon I thought I had never seen a prettierlittle craft. Her tall, slim, taper spars had a jaunty little rake aft,and were encumbered with only so much rigging as was absolutelynecessary to prevent them from going over the side. Her yards, thoughlight, were of immense spread, and the new suit of sails with which shehad been fitted fore and aft, and which had been stretching all the weekand were permanently bent only that same morning, gleamed in thebrilliant sunshine, white as snow.
Her hull was coppered to about six inches beyond the water-line, andabove this she was painted a cool grey up to her rail, this colour beingrelieved by a narrow scarlet riband along the covering-board. It was afancy of the admiral, that she should be made as unlike a ship of war aspossible, in order that she might be the more thoroughly fitted for herdestined work; and, between us all, we certainly managed to meet hiswishes in that respect to perfection, for she looked, both in hull andrigging, more like a yacht than anything else.
On the following day the stores and ammunition were shipped, and on theday after I called at the admiral's office for my instructions, joinedthe ship, and that same evening, as soon as the land breeze set in,proceeded to sea; my orders being to cruise among the Windward Passagesfor the protection of trade and the suppression of piracy untilrecalled, and to look in at the post office on Crooked Island about oncea month for orders.
Keeping close along in under the land, so as to take full advantage ofthe land breeze, we were off Morant Point by midnight, when we stretchedaway to seaward, and finally, after being obliged to take to our sweepsto get across the calm belt between the _terral_ and the trade-wind,stood away to the northward, close-hauled upon the starboard tack,toward the Cuban shore.
Weathering in due time Cape Maysi, the eastern extremity of the islandof Cuba, we shaped a course for Crooked Island Passage, and being thenable to get a small pull upon the weather-braces and to ease off themainsheet a foot or so, we bowled along in a style which filled allhands with delight.
On our arrival at Crooked Island we called at the post offi
ce, and Ileft a letter for the admiral, reporting progress. There was a finefull-rigged ship lying there when we arrived, bound for London; she hadbeen there two days, waiting and hoping for the arrival of a man-of-war,under the protection of which to get safely through the Passage. Shecarried a very rich cargo and some sixteen passengers, most of whom wereladies, and as she only mounted four small guns, and carried no morethan just sufficient men to work the ship, her skipper was willing tolose a day or two upon the chance of getting a safe convoy clear of theislands, among which there had been of late some very daring cases ofpiracy.
Finding that the "Centurion"--as his ship was named--was perfectly readyfor sea, I arranged with her skipper to sail again that afternoon, whichwe accordingly did. The "Centurion" proving to be a slow sailer, wewere four days taking her out clear of everything, when, having done sowithout molestation, the two ships parted company, and we bore up for aregular cruise to the southward among the various passages.
We fell in with a good many ships, all English, pushing through thevarious passages, and a few of them asked for convoy; but of pirates,slavers, or French privateers--any of which would have been game for ourbag--we saw nothing.
At length, having made the circuit of the archipelago once, calling atthe post office on reaching it, but finding no orders, we had proceededso far on our cruise as to have arrived off the Square HandkerchiefShoal on our second round, and were about to bear up through the SilverKay Passage, when, toward the end of the afternoon watch, the windsuddenly dropped, and by sun-down it had fallen stark calm.
The air turned close and hot as the breath of an oven, and as theevening wore on a heavy bank of black cloud worked up from to leewardand slowly overspread the sky, gradually settling down until the vapourappeared to touch our mast-heads.
Hawsepipe, a master's-mate, who was acting as master, had been veryfidgety for some time, and at last, "What do you think all this means,Mr Chester?" said he.
"I scarcely know _what_ to make of it," I replied. "I have never seenanything quite like it before. It looks more like an impending thunder-storm than anything else; but it _may_ be something very different, andI was about to give the order to shorten sail when you spoke."
"I really think we had better," he returned. "I see no sign of wind asyet, certainly; still, as we are in no hurry, it would be just as wellto be prepared for anything and everything that can possibly happen.What sail shall we get her under?"
"Well, being, as you remark, in no sort of hurry, I think we will makeour precautions as complete as possible by stowing everything except thefore-trysail and staysail. Let the men commence with the mainsail, asit is the largest and least manageable sail in a breeze."
"All hands, shorten sail!" sang out Hawsepipe.
The boatswain's pipe sounded, his gruff voice reiterated the order, andthe men, who had been grouped together on the forecastle discussing thesingular appearance of the weather, sprang to their stations.
"Main and peak halliards let go! Man the main-tack tricing-line anddown with the throat of the sail; round-in upon the mainsheet! Now,then, is there no one to attend to the peak downhaul? That's right.Now roll up the sail snugly and put the coat on. In with the whole ofyour square canvas forward. Royal, topgallant, and topsail halliardsand sheets let go; man the clewlines, and clew them up cheerily, mylads. Haul down and stow both jibs. Lay aloft there! and see that youstow your canvas snugly, although it _is_ too dark at present for me tosee what you are about." Thus Mr Hawsepipe, in as authoritative a toneas though he were the first luff of a 120-gun ship.
Sail was shortened in considerably less time than it has taken to writethe above description; for though this was the first cruise whereinHawsepipe had been placed in a position of actual authority, he wasanything but a tyro in the science of seamanship, and insisted on_everything_ on board being done as thoroughly well as it was possibleto do it, and the schooner was soon ready for whatever might come.
The night grew hotter and hotter, and still the glassy calm continued.The darkness was so intense, so opaque, that on placing my hand closebefore my eyes, I was quite unable to see it; and the stillness of theair was such that the flame of a lamp brought on deck burned straight upand down, merely swaying a trifle with the heave of the ship upon thelong, sluggish swell.
This state of things continued until nearly four bells in the firstwatch, when a startling phenomenon occurred. The curtain of vapour grewmore dense even than it had been before, entirely precluding thepossibility of any light penetrating from above; notwithstanding which,the atmosphere very gradually became luminous with a ghastly, blue,sulphurous light, until it was possible, not only to see distinctlyevery object on board the schooner, but also to distinguish the gleamingsurface of the water for a distance on every side of some three miles orso.
The faces of the men huddled together on the forecastle looked ghastlyand death-like in this unearthly light, and the hull, spars, rigging andcanvas of the schooner assumed such a weird and supernatural appearancewhen illumined by it, that she might easily have been mistaken for acruiser from Phlegethon.
But this was not all. About half-an-hour after this singular luminosityof the atmosphere first became apparent, and before the startled seamenhad recovered their self-possession, in an instant, without anypremonition whatever, there appeared at each mast-head and yardarm, atthe jibboom-end--in fact, at the end of every spar on board theschooner--a globe of greenish-coloured light, about the size of anordinary lamp-globe, each of which wavered and swayed, elongated andflattened, as the ship gently rose and fell over the glassy sea.
The men were now thoroughly terrified.
"See that, Tom?" exclaimed one. "What d'ye call all them things?"
"Why, they be Davy Jones' lanterns, _they_ be," returned Tom; "and rightsorry am I to see 'em."
"Davy Jones' lanterns?" echoed the questioner. "What--you don't mean asthem lights has been h'isted aboard here by the real old genuine Davyhisself, eh?"
"That's just what I _do_ mean, then, and no mistake. My eyes! there's ashow of 'em, too; never seed so many afore in my life. You mark mywords, Dick, and see if something out o' the common don't happen to thishere little barkie afore four-and-twenty hours is over our heads."
"What sort of a _somethin'_ d'ye mean, Tom, bo'?" asked another.
"Why, harm or damage o' some kind," replied the oracle. "I've heerd sayas how when them lanterns is showed aboard of a craft, that it's a suresign as she's a doomed ship. I remembers one time when I was in theChinee seas in the old--Lord ha' mercy on us! what's that?"
A dazzling, blinding flash, which seemed to set both sky and sea onfire, and a simultaneous crash of thunder of so terrific a characterthat my ears rang and tingled, and I was stone-deaf for a few minutesafterwards, interrupted the speaker. I reeled under the awfulconcussion, as though I had received a crushing blow, and for a minuteor two I felt dazed to the verge of unconsciousness. Then I becamesensible that Hawsepipe was grasping my hand and trying to direct myattention forward; he seemed, too, to be anxious to say something, forhis lips were moving rapidly in an excited manner.
I looked forward, and--behold!--there lay our foremast, with allattached, over the side; the stump--standing about four feet above thedeck--being nothing but a mass of charred and blackened splinters. Thiswas bad enough, but, letting my glance travel forward, I saw that thewhole of the men on the forecastle had been struck to the deck by theelectric fluid.
Hawsepipe, the surgeon, the quarter-master, and I, all rushed forward ina body to the assistance of the unfortunate men, and to ascertain theextent of their injuries. We raised the poor fellows, as we came tothem, into a sitting position against the bulwarks, while the surgeonhastily examined them. To our horror it was found that all but four hadbeen killed by that tremendous discharge, the dead men's bodies being insome cases blackened and charred as if by fire; while, in other cases,their knives and the coin in their pockets were fused into shapelesslumps of metal. The living were car
ried aft to the cabin, where thesurgeon, assisted by Hawsepipe, devoted all his energies to theirrestoration, while the quarter-master and I returned to the deck to lookafter the safety of the ship.
In the meantime a terrific thunder-storm heralded by that firstdestructive discharge, had set in, the green and baleful glare of thelivid lightning illuminating the scene until it became almost as lightas day; while the crashing roll of the thunder was absolutelycontinuous, and so deafening that I felt stunned and stupefied by it.There was no rain, neither was there any wind, properly speaking, thedead calm being only interrupted now and then by a momentary gust ofwind, hot as the blasting breath of a furnace, which passed over us andwas gone almost before we had time to realise its presence. Thesefitful and transient gusts of wind came from all quarters of thecompass. I had never before experienced weather of at all a similarcharacter, nor had Simpson, the quarter-master, and we were equallypuzzled as to what to expect. The heavens were black as ink, and theclouds, rendered visible by the unearthly bluish-green glare of thelightning, were seen to be writhing and working like tortured serpents;but there was nothing to indicate a probable breeze.
There was plenty of work to be done, the clearing away of the wreckbeing our first task. Simpson and I accordingly armed ourselves with atomahawk each, and went forward to make a commencement. Simpson beganat the jibboom-end, cutting away the stays attached thereto, and workinghis way in, while I made an attack upon the shrouds and backstays. Ourintention was to cut away everything in the first instance, in case ofbad weather coming on, and afterwards to save as much of the wreck as wecould.
I had scarcely begun my task when I fancied I smelt a smell of burning,but for the first minute or so I paid little attention to it, as the airhad been for a long time pervaded by a strong choking sulphurous odour.I had struck but a few strokes with my tomahawk however, when a verystrong whiff assailed my nostrils, and at the same instant a thin wreathof smoke appeared hovering over the fore-scuttle. Dropping my tomahawk,I darted toward the opening, and, looking down, found the place full ofsmoke, which appeared to be prevented from rising by the peculiarcondition of the atmosphere.
"Lay in, Simpson," I shouted to the quarter-master; "the ship is onfire!"
The old fellow, with his arm raised in the act of striking at the jib-stay, turned, and, catching sight of the smoke, bundled inboard in atrice. We descended to the forecastle together, and found it so full ofdense pungent smoke that it was impossible to remain there a momentwithout adopting precautions of some kind to escape suffocation; weaccordingly returned to the deck, and, removing our black silkhandkerchiefs from our throats saturated them with water, and then boundthem tightly about the lower part of our faces, leaving our eyes onlyuncovered. Thus protected, we once more descended, and were thenenabled to remain long enough to assure ourselves that the forecastlewas not the seat of the fire. As we returned to the deck up the steepladder, I detected smoke issuing into the forecastle in dense jetsthrough the joints in the bulkhead, and this, together with the odour,which at that moment became very strong, led me to suspect that the firewas located in the store-room.
Saturating our handkerchiefs afresh and readjusting them upon our faces,we rushed aft and descended the main hatchway. Here--that is to say,immediately in the wake of the hatchway--there was very little smoke,but with _every_ step forward it became more and more dense, and as weapproached the store-room the heat and smoke became so stifling that wecould only proceed with the utmost difficulty.
At length, however, we managed to reach the store-room door, and thenthe heat, the heavy smoke, the dull roar and crackling of the flames,gave us unmistakable assurance that we had found the seat of themischief. I placed my hand upon the thick planking of the bulkhead andfound it to be scorching hot.
We were unable to remain a moment where we were, so intense was thesmoke and heat. We accordingly returned to the deck and summonedHawsepipe and the doctor to our assistance. We informed them in a fewwords of this new catastrophe, or rather of the unexpected result of theoriginal one--for I had no doubt whatever that it was the lightningwhich had set the ship on fire,--and received from them in return thenews that the four men had been restored to consciousness, but had notyet recovered the use of their limbs; we then at once set about cuttinga hole through the deck into the store-room, hoping that by means of thefire-engine and hose we might yet be able to conquer the flames.
A hole was first cut in the deck large enough to admit the end of thehose; the hose was then inserted, and packed carefully round with wetcanvas where it passed through the deck, so as to prevent, as far aspossible, the access of fresh air to the fire, and we four then mannedthe engine and proceeded with all our energy to pump water down upon theflames.
We had been thus engaged for about a quarter of an hour, the lightningraging round us all the while in undiminished fury, when, in an instant,down came the rain in a perfect flood.
"Shut the ports!" yelled Hawsepipe.
We understood in a moment the object he had in view, and, leaving theengine, went round the decks, closing the ports and stopping up thescuppers with pieces of canvas, so as to prevent the water from flowingoff the deck. The rain was descending in such copious torrents that ina few minutes we were up to our knees in warm, fresh water, when thehose was withdrawn from the hole in the deck and the water allowed tostream down into the store-room. A dense jet of steam rushed up throughthe hole immediately that we withdrew the hose and its packing.
We now had a moment in which to take a look below, and see what resulthad attended our labours. A glance at the fore-scuttle was anything butreassuring, dense clouds of steam and smoke issuing by this time fromthe opening, and as we looked the smoke suddenly became tinged with thelurid reflection of flames. I darted to the opening, and looking downas well as I could through the blinding suffocating clouds which rushedup in denser volumes every instant, saw that the bulkhead was burnedthrough, and the flames already spreading in every direction.
The fire-engine was instantly started once more, the hose being thistime directed down into the forecastle, and for twenty minutes we playedupon the fire there--the rain all the while rushing down in sheets andfast filling our decks--without result; at the end of that time itbecame apparent that the ship was doomed.
Hawsepipe and the doctor had meanwhile pressed their investigationsfarther aft, soon reappearing with the alarming news that the fire wasspreading aft with great rapidity.
"Then there is nothing for it but to take to the boat without furtherdelay," said I.
And we set about getting her over the side forthwith, our motions beingconsiderably accelerated by the increasing loudness of the roaringcrackling sound of the fire, the dense cloud of smoke which nowenveloped the ship, and the almost unbearable heat of the deck. Theflames spread so rapidly that by the time we had got the boat into thewater, with her oars, sails, etcetera, a couple of breakers of water, abag or two of biscuits, and a miscellaneous collection of small storesfrom the cabin lockers, the heat and smoke had become so unendurablethat we could not remain still a moment, indeed so sorely pressed werewe that the poor fellows who had been injured by the lightning, and whohad been brought on deck some time before to save them from suffocation,were almost _thrown_ over the side into the boat; we scrambled in afterthem, and casting off got out the oars, and pulled as fast as we couldfrom the ship, which in another minute was blazing from stem to stern,notwithstanding the still pouring rain.
We pushed off in dead silence, and, having pulled far enough away to beclear of the scorching heat, laid with one consent upon our oars towatch the conflagration. We had been lying thus motionless upon thewater some three or four minutes, when the mainmast swayed slowly to andfro for a moment, and then fell with a hissing splash into the wateralongside, a shower of sparks shooting up at the same moment from theburning bulwarks which had been crushed out by the mast in its fall. Wewere watching and remarking upon the way in which the planks of thetopsides were twisting up and ope
ning out from the timbers under theinfluence of the tremendous heat, when suddenly an awful recollectionflashed upon me.
"Pull! pull for your lives!" I screamed. "We have forgotten to drownout the magazine."
Not another word was needed. With one accord the oars dashed into thewater, and you may rest assured that we threw our entire weight andstrength into each stroke, bending the stout ash staves as though theywere pliant whalebone, and all but lifting the boat clear out of thewater.
We had not pulled more than a dozen strokes before there was a violentconcussion, as though we had run stem-on upon a sandbank, the schooner'ssides burst apart, the flaming planks of the deck, with its fittings,the guns, and everything else upon it, soared into the air in the midstof a blinding sheet of flame, and then came the dull, heavy roar of theexplosion, and--black darkness.
We ceased pulling as the explosion took place, struck powerless for themoment at this sudden and terrible destruction which had befallen thecraft so lately our home and ark of safety, and it was only when thefiery fragments began to fall thickly round us that we took to our oarsonce more.
But our troubles had scarcely yet begun, for our oars had hardly dippedin the water when--_crash_!--there fell a ponderous fragment of one ofthe schooner's timbers down upon the boat, literally cutting her in twoand killing poor old Simpson on the spot.
The boat at once sank from under us, leaving us all struggling for ourlives in the water. Hawsepipe was a famous swimmer, and he immediatelyseized the doctor--who could not swim a stroke--and placed him in aposition of temporary safety upon the floating piece of timber which hadinflicted upon us this fresh disaster, while I looked after the injuredmen who, probably owing to the shock of immersion, had suddenly so farrecovered the use of their limbs as to be able with very littleassistance to gain the same refuge.
We now found, what we had been too busy to notice before, that thethunder-storm had nearly worn itself out; an occasional flash, low downupon the horizon, and its long, rumbling accompaniment of distantthunder being all that remained to remind us of it, except the frequentgleam of sheet lightning which continued to play all round the horizonand behind the great banks of cloud into which the black canopy overheadhad now broken.
The question calling for immediate attention was, how best to providefor our safety. Clinging to the floating timber we were safe only aslong as it remained calm; a very gentle sea would be sufficient to washus from our hold. Looking round me, I perceived that we were at nogreat distance from the wreck of the foremast, and I thought if allhands could only reach it, we might be able to construct from it and thespars attached to it a raft of sufficient capacity to accommodate us allin some degree of comfort and safety. I mentioned my idea to Hawsepipe,who approved of it greatly; whereupon I left him to look after thesurvivors while I went to the spar. Reaching it, I was able withoutmuch difficulty to form from the halliards of the various sails and theother running-gear still attached to the spars a warp long enough toreach from the foremast to the timber to which the others were clinging,with which I swam back. Bending the end of this warp securely to thepiece of timber, Hawsepipe and I then swam to the foremast, and haulingupon the warp, soon had the rest of the party there also.
Hawsepipe undertaking with the assistance of the others to cut the yardsadrift and separate the topmast from the lower-mast, I took anothercruise with the warp, and was fortunate enough, after swimming about forover an hour, to bag a half-burned hen-coop with four dead fowls stilltherein, three hatches, and the remains of the mainmast with topmastattached, the latter spar being still in good enough condition to beserviceable, and the jibboom. All these things I contrived to getalongside the foremast without interrupting the labours of the others.
Hawsepipe evidently knew how to construct a raft upon scientificprinciples. The foremast he took for a sort of foundation or keel,laying the two topmasts, one on each side and parallel to it, at adistance of about ten feet. The ends of these spars were then crossedby and lashed to the two yardarms of the fore-yard at the end of theraft which he intended for its stern, and to the topsail yardarms at thefore end. This formed a rectangular staging, with the lower-mastrunning fore and aft through its centre. This staging was thenstrengthened by lashing the jibboom across it in the middle, and uponthe top of all, the hatches and the hen-coop were firmly secured,forming a small platform, upon which, however, there was room for us allwith a little crowding. The topgallant yard with the sail stillattached was then got on end, one arm being lashed to the foremast, andthe other sustained aloft by means of shrouds and stays. The topgallantsail we cut in two diagonally, and thus treated it formed a tolerablyserviceable leg-of-mutton sail.
It took us so long to do all this, that by the time we had finished, daywas breaking; and as the sun rose the clouds cleared away, and thetrade-wind once more resumed its sway, the fresh, cool breeze greatlyreviving our exhausted energies, while it bore us, at the rate of abouta knot and a half per hour, away from the scene of the catastrophe.
Under the Meteor Flag: Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War Page 27
