“West-and-by-north, and nothin’ higher, sir,” answered the man, easing his weather helm a couple of spokes as I turned away to see to the preventer back-stays being rigged.
Chapter Five.
The French frigate.
Our preventer back-stays—which, for the benefit of the uninitiated, I may explain, were simply extra ropes intended to take a portion of the strain and so relieve the ordinary back-stays whenever it became necessary to carry a very heavy press of canvas—were already cut and fitted; all that we had to do, therefore, was to send their upper ends aloft and attach them to their respective spars by shackling the eye to a stout iron collar on the spar, fitted especially for the purpose, set up the lower ends by means of runners to ring-bolts in the stanchions, and the thing was done. Five minutes sufficed for this job, and we then reset our topgallant-sail and flying-jib, and shifted our gaff-topsail. The effect soon became apparent; for a few minutes after we had concluded our work the frigate fired another gun, the shot from which only reached to within about thirty fathoms of us. I was inclined to attribute this result, however, quite as much to our having eased the schooner away a trifle as to the extra canvas that we had packed upon her. I believed we should have done quite as well, if not better, without it; for the poor little craft seemed pressed down and buried by the enormous leverage of the wind upon her sails. She was heeling over so much that it was difficult to maintain one’s footing upon the steeply inclined deck; the lee scuppers were all afloat, and at every lee roll the white, yeasty seething from her lee bow brimmed to the level of her rail, sometimes even toppling in over it. She was a magnificent sea-boat; but we were now driving her so unmercifully that at every plunge into the hollow of a sea she buried her sharp nose completely, taking green water in over both the lee and the weather-bow by tons at a time, so that it became necessary to close the fore-scuttle to prevent the water from going below. As for the spray, it flew over us in clouds, coming right aft, and wetting our mainsail as high up as the second reef-band.
Another gun from the frigate served to conclusively demonstrate that we were at least holding our own; but our topmasts were bending like fishing-rods, and at every savage plunge of the schooner I quite expected to see one or both of them go over the side. The skipper, too, was very uneasy, as I could see by the anxious glances that he continually flung aloft. At length, when the frigate had fired yet another gun, the shot from which fell at about the same distance astern of us as the preceding one had done, he turned to me and said:
“This is all very well, George, as far as it goes; and if the wind would only drop a little we might snap our fingers at that fellow astern; but I don’t at all like the way that those topmasts are whipping about, up there. If so much as a rope-yarn parts we shall lose them, as sure as fate; and then we may bear up for a French prison as soon as we please. The frigate keeps popping away at us, in the hope, I suppose, that a lucky shot may wing us; and I don’t see why we shouldn’t return the compliment. We are just out of reach of her twelve-pounders, but I think our long eighteen ought to be capable of pitching a shot aboard her. Just bowse it up to wind’ard as far as it will go, and let us see what it will do.”
“Ay, ay, sir,” answered I. “The gun ought to reach her; and if we can but wing her, though ever so slightly, we may scrape clear after all. Lay aft, here, some of you, and get the tarpaulin off this Long Tom, and pass the word for the gunner.”
We soon got the gun into position, and the captain of it—a man who had seen a great deal of service on board a man-o’-war, from which he had deserted just before joining the Dolphin—tried a shot at the frigate. The gun was splendidly aimed, but it was fired just a second too late, as the schooner’s stern was dipping; the result was that the shot, which flew straight for the frigate, struck the water some distance ahead of her.