Some, Indeed, Looked As Though They Thought
The "Old Man" Was Mad, But No One Said A Word.
We had had a new
topmast studding-sail made with a reef in it, - a thing hardly
ever heard of, and which the sailors had ridiculed a good deal,
saying that when it was time to reef a studding-sail, it was time
to take it in.
But we found a use for it now; for, there being
a reef in the topsail, the studding-sail could not be set without
one in it also. To be sure, a studding-sail with reefed topsails
was rather a new thing; yet there was some reason in it, for if
we carried that away, we should lose only a sail and a boom;
but a whole topsail might have carried away the mast and all.
While we were aloft, the sail had been got out, bent to the yard,
reefed, and ready for hoisting. Waiting for a good opportunity,
the halyards were manned and the yard hoisted fairly up to the
block; but when the mate came to shake the catspaw out of the
downhaul, and we began to boom-end the sail, it shook the ship
to her centre. The boom buckled up and bent like a whip-stick,
and we looked every moment to see something go; but, being of
the short, tough upland spruce, it bent like whalebone, and nothing
could break it. The carpenter said it was the best stick he had
ever seen. The strength of all hands soon brought the tack to
the boom-end, and the sheet was trimmed down, and the preventer
and the weather brace hauled taught to take off the strain.
Every rope-yarn seemed stretched to the utmost, and every thread
of canvas; and with this sail added to her, the ship sprang through
the water like a thing possessed. The sail being nearly all forward,
it lifted her out of the water, and she seemed actually to jump from
sea to sea. From the time her keel was laid, she had never been so
driven; and had it been life or death with every one of us, she could
not have borne another stitch of canvas.
Finding that she would bear the sail, the hands were sent below,
and our watch remained on deck. Two men at the wheel had as much
as they could do to keep her within three points of her course,
for she steered as wild as a young colt. The mate walked the deck,
looking at the sails, and then over the side to see the foam fly
by her, slapping his hands upon his thighs and talking to the
ship - "Hurrah, you jade, you've got the scent! - you know where
you're going!" And when she leaped over the seas, and almost
out of the water, and trembled to her very keel, the spars
and masts snapping and creaking, - "There she goes! - There she
goes, - handsomely! - as long as she cracks she holds!" - while we
stood with the rigging laid down fair for letting go, and ready
to take in sail and clear away, if anything went. At four bells
we hove the log, and she was going eleven knots fairly; and had it
not been for the sea from aft which sent the ship home, and threw
her continually off her course, the log would have shown her to
have been going much faster. I went to the wheel with a young
fellow from the Kennebec, who was a good helmsman; and for two
hours we had our hands full. A few minutes showed us that our
monkey-jackets must come off; and, cold as it was, we stood in
our shirt-sleeves, in a perspiration; and were glad enough to have
it eight bells, and the wheel relieved. We turned-in and slept
as well as we could, though the sea made a constant roar under
her bows, and washed over the forecastle like a small cataract.
At four o'clock, we were called again. The same sail was still on
the vessel, and the gale, if there was any change, had increased
a little. No attempt was made to take the studding-sail in;
and, indeed, it was too late now. If we had started anything
toward taking it in, either tack or halyards, it would have blown
to pieces, and carried something away with it. The only way now was
to let everything stand, and if the gale went down, well and good;
if not, something must go - the weakest stick or rope first - and
then we could get it in. For more than an hour she was driven on
at such a rate that she seemed actually to crowd the sea into a
heap before her; and the water poured over the spritsail yard as
it would over a dam. Toward daybreak the gale abated a little,
and she was just beginning to go more easily along, relieved of
the pressure, when Mr. Brown, determined to give her no respite,
and depending upon the wind's subsiding as the sun rose, told us
to get along the lower studding-sail. This was an immense sail,
and held wind enough to last a Dutchman a week, - hove-to. It was
soon ready, the boom topped up, preventer guys rove, and the idlers
called up to man the halyards; yet such was still the force of the
gale, that we were nearly an hour setting the sail; carried away the
outhaul in doing it, and came very near snapping off the swinging
boom. No sooner was it set than the ship tore on again like one
that was mad, and began to steer as wild as a hawk. The men at
the wheel were puffing and blowing at their work, and the helm was
going hard up and hard down, constantly. Add to this, the gale
did not lessen as the day came on, but the sun rose in clouds.
A sudden lurch threw the man from the weather wheel across the deck
and against the side.
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