The Steward Tried To Justify Himself; But He Had Been Heard To Talk
Of Spilling Blood, And That Was Enough To Earn Him His Flogging;
And The Captain Did Not Choose To Inquire Any Further.
CHAPTER XXXIV
NARROW ESCAPES - THE EQUATOR - TROPICAL SQUALLS - A THUNDER STORM
The same day, I met with one of those narrow escapes, which are
so often happening in a sailor's life. I had been aloft nearly
all the afternoon, at work, standing for as much as an hour on
the fore top-gallant yard, which was hoisted up, and hung only by
the tie; when, having got through my work, I balled up my yarns,
took my serving-board in my hand, laid hold deliberately of the
top-gallant rigging, took one foot from the yard, and was just
lifting the other, when the tie parted, and down the yard fell.
I was safe, by my hold upon the rigging, but it made my heart beat
quick. Had the tie parted one instant sooner, or had I stood an
instant longer on the yard, I should inevitably have been thrown
violently from the height of ninety or a hundred feet, overboard;
or, what is worse, upon the deck. However, "a miss is as good
as a mile;" a saying which sailors very often have occasion to
use. An escape is always a joke on board ship. A man would be
ridiculed who should make a serious matter of it. A sailor knows
too well that his life hangs upon a thread, to wish to be always
reminded of it; so, if a man has an escape, he keeps it to himself,
or makes a joke of it. I have often known a man's life to be saved
by an instant of time, or by the merest chance, - the swinging of
a rope, - and no notice taken of it. One of our boys, when off
Cape Horn, reefing topsails of a dark night, and when there were
no boats to be lowered away, and where, if a man fell overboard he
must be left behind, - lost his hold of the reef-point, slipped from
the foot-rope, and would have been in the water in a moment, when
the man who was next to him on the yard caught him by the collar
of his jacket, and hauled him up upon the yard, with - "Hold on,
another time, you young monkey, and be d - - d to you!" - and that
was all that was heard about it.
Sunday, August 7th. Lat. 25° 59' S., long. 27° 0' W. Spoke the
English bark Mary-Catherine, from Bahia, bound to Calcutta.
This was the first sail we had fallen in with, and the first
time we had seen a human form or heard the human voice, except of
our own number, for nearly a hundred days. The very yo-ho-ing of
the sailors at the ropes sounded sociably upon the ear. She was
an old, damaged-looking craft, with a high poop and top-gallant
forecastle, and sawed off square, stem and stern, like a true
English "tea-wagon," and with a run like a sugar-box.
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