FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154  
155   156   157   158   159   160   161   162   163   164   165   166   167   168   169   170   171   172   173   174   175   176   177   178   179   >>   >|  
embarrass him until he could obtain others to fill their places; and I formed this opinion from the fact that his many expressions of regret at being blown away from his boats were every one of them coupled with a petulant repetition of the remark that his hands would be completely tied should he fail to recover their crews. So persistently did he hang upon this phase of the mishap, that at length I ventured to ask him whether there were none of them that he would be sorry to lose for their own sakes, apart from any question of inconvenience; in reply to which he stated, with a brutal laugh, that they were, one and all, a lazy set of worthless rascals, of whom he should have rid himself in any case on his arrival in Havana. However, be his motive what it might, he cracked, on every stitch of canvas that the brigantine would bear, as soon as the strength of the squall had sufficiently abated to permit of his bringing her to the wind, making sail from time to time as the wind further dwindled, until he had her under everything that would draw, from the trucks down. To add to his anxiety, it was about two bells in the first dog-watch before he could bring the ship to the wind, and he feared, not without reason, that it would be dark before he could work back near enough to the spot at which we had left the boats, to see them again--always supposing, of course, that they still floated. However, he did everything that a seaman could do, sending a hand aloft to the royal-yard to keep a look-out as soon as the ship had been got upon a wind, and making short boards to windward--the first one of a quarter of an hour's duration, and the others of half-an-hour each, so as to thoroughly cover the ground previously passed over--as long as the daylight lasted. But when, all too soon, the sun went down in a blaze of golden and crimson and purple splendour, no sign of the boats had been seen; Mendouca, therefore, worked out a calculation of the distance run by the brigantine from the spot where the squall first struck her, subtracted from it the distance that the boats would probably traverse in the same time, and having worked up to this spot as nearly as he could calculate, he hove-to for the night, with a bright lantern at his main-truck, firing signal rockets at intervals of a quarter of an hour, and wearing the ship round on the other tack every two hours. The night was brilliantly star-lit, but without a moon, still there w
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154  
155   156   157   158   159   160   161   162   163   164   165   166   167   168   169   170   171   172   173   174   175   176   177   178   179   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
However
 

distance

 

worked

 

brigantine

 

making

 
squall
 
quarter
 

boards

 
lantern
 

windward


wearing

 

intervals

 
rockets
 

firing

 
duration
 

signal

 
floated
 
seaman
 

brilliantly

 

supposing


sending

 

splendour

 

purple

 

Mendouca

 

traverse

 

struck

 

subtracted

 

calculation

 

crimson

 

golden


previously

 
passed
 

ground

 

daylight

 

calculate

 
lasted
 

bright

 
ventured
 

length

 
mishap

persistently
 

stated

 
brutal
 
inconvenience
 

question

 

recover

 
expressions
 

regret

 
opinion
 

formed