“But he had scarcely time to utter his pretended caution before Ned was in the top.
“The infuriated ape, in the meantime, had awaited the gallant middy’s approach, until perceiving he held a glittering dirk between his teeth, he began to chatter and scream, and toss and twirl the screaming infant about, until each moment seemed to be its last.
“The sight was sickening, for no one knew how to catch the ape.
“He might at any moment, in his fury, have dashed the infant’s brains out against the mast.
“No one dared to fire, for the same shot might have killed the child.
“Besides, if the ape had been wounded, he would then have surely killed the babe for revenge.
“Gallant Ned had nearly got up the rigging, when the ape clasped the baby more firmly, and, running along the yard to the opposite side of the top, sprang up a rope, and thence to the topmast back-stay.
“Up this it ran to the topmast cross-trees, where it again quietly seated itself and resumed its work of scratching the baby’s head, and pulling its clothes to pieces.
“The cries of the child were now ear-piercing and heartrending.
“For several minutes I stood watching the gallant young middy follow Jacko the ape from one piece of rigging to another, the ape all the while seeming only to exert such speed as was necessary to elude its pursuer, and pausing whenever the latter appeared to be weary of the exciting chase.