“It had been bright, sunshiny weather when the work began, but all the afternoon the clouds had gathered until the sky was completely overcast, like a solid roof of gray, and when the mast rose up, about one quarter of it pierced the clouds. At last it stood, straight and tall, the heel firmly fixed on the step above the deck of the Jane Ellen, and the top hidden from sight in the cloud roof, and a shout went up that must have reached the heavens! Then everybody drew a long breath, and went to rest, and waited for it to be quite dark.”
The Princess paused. “Perhaps you, yourselves, would like to stop and hear the rest another time?” she suggested. But they were sure they wouldn’t. So, after only a moment, while Pat changed to another place, she went on:—
“When it was time, and every one was on deck (the other captains had come aboard again), the Captain of the Jane Ellen looked up at the great tall mast, going up and up until it went out of sight in the clouds, and he said to the other captains, ‘Whom shall I send up to talk to the Star People?’ And the other captains said, very decidedly, ‘You’ll have to send an able seaman.’
“So the Bos’n picked out the very best able seaman there was, and he stepped out before the captains. He swayed his body when he walked, and hitched up his trousers, and he could dance a hornpipe better than any man aboard, and wrap his leg four times around a rope when he climbed. He was just the man to climb to the top of that great tall mast.
“The Captain looked at the Able Seaman, and said, ‘You go aloft there; and when you get to the top, you tell the Star People you want to talk to their captain. Do you understand?’
“The Able Seaman pulled his forelock and said, ‘Ay, ay, sir,’ and the Captain went on: ‘You tell him, we want one star that we can depend on, to steer by. We’ve steered by them ever since there were ships, and they move about all the time, and we can’t stand it any longer! We’ve done the fair thing by them, and now they can do the fair thing by us, or by Jiminy! we’ll throw the whole lot of ’em over, and they’ll be out of a job!—Do you understand?’
“The Able Seaman pulled his forelock and said, ‘Ay, ay, sir.’
“‘Then, up you go!’ and the Able Seaman turned away and came to the foot of the great tall mast.
“There were two ropes that ran from the top to the bottom. He wound his leg four times around one of them, and took hold of the other and began to climb. And everybody watched him go up and up, and grow smaller and smaller until he wasn’t nearly so large as a fly. And then he went clear out of sight in the clouds. And they couldn’t have seen him at all, any of the way, if they hadn’t thrown a strong light on him as he went up.
“Then—though there was nothing to see, and their necks ached—nobody could take his eyes from the spot where he disappeared. And before very long they saw a little speck, smaller than a fly, appear again and come down the great tall mast,—so tall it took thirty-eight minutes to come down from the place where it entered the cloud. The captains hardly could wait for him to get down.