- "Here Comes His Fore-Top-Gallant Sail In!" - We
Are Wide Awake, And Know All That's Going On As Well As If We Were
On Deck.
- A well-known voice is heard from the mast-head singing out
the officer of the watch to haul taught the weather brace.
- "Hallo!
There's S - - - aloft to furl the sail!" - Next thing, rigging is
heaved down directly over our heads, and a long-drawn cry and a
rattling of hanks announce that the flying-jib has come in. - The
second mate holds on to the main top-gallant sail until a heavy
sea is shipped, and washes over the forecastle as though the
whole ocean had come aboard; when a noise further aft shows
that that sail, too, is taking in. After this, the ship is
more easy for a time; two bells are struck, and we try to get a
little sleep. By-and-by, bang, bang, bang, on the scuttle - "All
ha-a-ands, a ho-o-y!" - We spring out of our berths, clap on a
monkey-jacket and southwester, and tumble up the ladder. - Mate
up before us, and on the forecastle, singing out like a roaring
bull; the captain singing out on the quarter-deck, and the second
mate yelling, like a hyena, in the waist. The ship is lying over
half upon her beam-ends; lee scuppers under water, and forecastle
all in a smother of foam. - Rigging all let go, and washing about
decks; topsail yards down upon the caps, and sails flapping and
beating against the masts; and starboard watch hauling out the
reef-tackles of the main topsail. Our watch haul out the fore,
and lay aloft and put two reefs into it, and reef the foresail,
and race with the starboard watch, to see which will mast-head its
topsail first. All hands tally-on to the main tack, and while some
are furling the jib, and hoisting the staysail, we mizen-topmen
double-reef the mizen topsail and hoist it up. All being made fast
- "Go below, the watch!" and we turn-in to sleep out the rest of the
time, which is perhaps an hour and a half. During all the middle,
and for the first part of the morning watch, it blows as hard as
ever, but toward daybreak it moderates considerably, and we shake
a reef out of each topsail, and set the top-gallant sails over
them and when the watch come up, at seven bells, for breakfast,
shake the other reefs out, turn all hands to upon the halyards,
get the watch-tackle upon the top-gallant sheets and halyards,
set the flying-jib, and crack on to her again.
Our captain had been married only a few weeks before he left Boston;
and, after an absence of over two years, it may be supposed he was
not slow in carrying sail. The mate, too, was not to be beaten by
anybody; and the second mate, though he was afraid to press sail,
was afraid as death of the captain, and being between two fears,
sometimes carried on longer than any of them.
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