A shout
from Talcott drew me to our taffrail, and standing on that of our
neighbour, what or whom should I see waving his hat, but the red
countenance of honest Moses Marble!
CHAPTER XXVI.
"At the piping of all hands,
When the judgment signal's spread--
When the islands and the lands,
And the seas give up the dead,
And the south and the north shall come;
When the sinner is dismay'd,
And the just man is afraid,
Then heaven be thy aid,
Poor _Tom_.'"
BRAINARD.
The two ships, in the haste of their respective crews to get clear of
each other, were now running in the troughs; and the same idea would
seem to have suggested itself to me and the other master, at the same
instant. Instead of endeavouring to keep away again, one kept his helm
hard a-port, the other as hard a-starboard, until we both came by the
wind, though on opposite tacks. The Englishman set his mizen-stay-sail,
and though he made bad weather of it, he evidently ran much less risk
than in scudding. The seas came on board him constantly; but not in a
way to do any material damage. As for the Dawn, she lay-to, like a
duck, under bare poles. I had a spare stay-sail, stopped up in her
mizen-rigging, from the top down, and after that the ship was both
easy and dry. Once in a while, it is true, her bows would meet some
fellow heavier than common, and then we got a few hogsheads of water
forward; but it went out to leeward as fast as it came in to
windward.
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