The manner of the visitors was less easy. The deep anxiety with which both Ludlow and the patroon had undertaken to board the notorious smuggler had given place to an amazement and a curiosity that caused them nearly to forget their errands; while Alderman Van Beverout appeared shy and suspicious, manifestly thinking less of his niece than of the consequences of so remarkable an interview. They all returned the salutation of their host, though each waited for him to speak.
THE MAIN-TRUCK
Anonymous
(From "The Book of the Ocean" Auburn N. Y. 1857)
The Main-Truck, or a Leap for Life
THE last cruise I made in the Mediterranean was in "Old Ironsides," as we used to call our gallant frigate[6].
We had been backing and filling for several months on the western coast of Africa, from the Canaries down to Messurado, in search of slave traders; and during that time we had had some pretty heavy weather. When we reached the straits, there was a spanking wind blowing from about west south west; so we squared away, and, without coming to at the Rocks, made a straight wake for old Mahon, the general rendezvous and place of refitting for our squadrons in the Mediterranean. Immediately on arriving there, we warped in alongside the Arsenal quay, where we stripped ship to a girtline, broke out the holds, tiers, and store-rooms, and gave her a regular-built overhauling from the stem to stern. For awhile, every body was busy, and all seemed bustle and confusion. Orders and replies, in loud and dissimilar voices, the shrill pipings of the different boatswain's mates, each attending to separate duties, and the mingled clatter and noise of various kinds of work, all going on at the same time, gave something of the stir and animation of a dock yard to the usually quiet arsenal of Mahon. The boatswain and his crew were engaged in fitting a new gang of rigging; the gunner in repairing his breachings and guntackles; the forecastle men in calking; the top-men in sending down the yards and upper spars; the holders and waisters in white-washing and holy stoning; and even the poor marines were kept busy, like beasts of burden, in carrying breakers of water on their backs. On the quay, near the ship, the smoke of the armorer's forge, which had been hoisted out and sent ashore, ascended in a thin black column through the clear blue sky; from one of the neighboring white stone warehouses the sound of saw and hammer told that the carpenters were at work; near by, a livelier rattling drew attention to the cooper, who in the open air was tightening the water-casks; and not far removed, under a temporary shed, formed of spare studding-sails and tarpaulins, sat the sailmaker and his assistants, repairing the sails which had been rent or injured by the many storms we had encountered.
Many hands, however, make light work, and in a very few days all was accomplished: the stays and shrouds were set up and new rattled down; the yards crossed, the running rigging rove, and sails bent; and the old craft, fresh painted and all a-taunt-o, looked as fine as a midshipman on liberty. In place of the storm-stumps, which had been stowed away among the booms and other spare spars, amidships, we had set up cap to' gallant-masts, and royal-poles, with a sheave for skysails, and hoist enough for skyscrappers above them: so you may judge the old frigate looked pretty taunt. There was a Dutch line-ship in the harbor; but though we only carried forty-four to her eighty, her main-truck would hardly have reached to our royal-mast-head. The side-boys, whose duty it was to lay aloft and furl the skysails, looked no bigger on the yard than a good sized duff for a midshipman's mess, and the main-truck seemed not half as large as the Turk's head-knot on the main-ropes of the accommodation ladder.
When we had got every thing ship-shape and man-of-war fashion, we hauled out again, and took our berth about half way between the Arsenal and Hospital island ; and a pleasant view it gave us of the town and harbor of old Mahon, one of the safest and most tranquil places of anchorage in the world. The water of this beautiful inlet — which though it makes about four miles into the land, is not much over a quarter of a mile in width — is scarcely ever ruffled by a storm; and on the delightful afternoon to which I now refer, it lay as still and motionless as a polished mirror, except when broken into momentary ripples by the paddles of some passing waterman. What little wind we had had in the fore part of the day, died away at noon, and, though the first dog-watch was almost out, and the sun was near the horizon, not a breath of air had risen to disturb the deep serenity of the scene. The Dutch liner, which lay not far from us, was so clearly reflected in the glassy surface of the water, that there was not a rope about her, from her main-stay to her signal halliards, which the eye could not distinctly trace in her shadowy and inverted image. The buoy of our best bower floated abreast our larboard bow; and that, too, was so strongly imaged, that its entire bulk seemed to lie above the water, just resting on it, as if upborne on a sea of molten lead; except when now and then, the wringing of a swab, or the dashing of a bucket overboard from the head, broke up the shadow for a moment, and showed the substance but half its former apparent size. A small polacca craft had got underway from Mahon in the course of the forenoon, intending to stand over to Barcelona: but it fell dead calm just before she reached the chops of the harbor; and there she lay as motionless upon the blue surface, as if she were only part of a mimic scene from the pencil of some accomplished painter. Her broad cotton lateen-sails, as they hung drooping from the slanting and taper yards, shone with a glistening whiteness that contrasted beautifully with the dark flood in which they were reflected; and the distant sound of the guitar, which one of the sailors was listlessly playing on her deck, came sweetly over the water, and harmonized well with the quiet appearance of every thing around. The whitewashed walls of the lazaretto, on a verdant headland at the mouth of the bay, glittered like silver in the slant rays of the sun; and some of its windows were burnished so brightly by the level beams, that it seemed as if the whole interior of the edifice were in flames. On the opposite side, the romantic and picturesque ruins of fort St. Philip, faintly seen, acquired double beauty from being tipped with the declining light; and the clusters of ancient-looking windmills, which dot the green eminences along the bank, added, by the motionless state of their wings, to the effect of the unbroken tranquility of the scene.
Even on board our vessel, a degree of stillness unusual for a man-of-war prevailed among the crew. It was the hour of their evening meal; and the low hum that came from the gun-deck had an indistinct and buzzing sound, which, like the tiny song of bees of a warm summer noon, rather heightened than diminished the charm of the surrounding quiet. The spar-deck was almost deserted. The quarter-master of the watch, with his spy-glass in his hand, and dressed in a frock and trousers of snowy whiteness, stood aft upon the taffrail, erect and motionless as a statue, keeping the usual look-out. A group of some half a dozen sailors had gathered together on the forecastle, where they were supinely lying under the shade of the bulwarks; and here and there, upon the gun-slides along the gangway, sat three or four others — one, with his clothes-bag beside him, overhauling his simple wardrobe; another working a set of clues for some favorite officer's hammock; and a third engaged in carving his name in rude letters upon the handle of a jack-knife.
On the top of the boom cover and in the full glare of the level sun, lay black Jake, the jig-maker of the ship, and a striking specimen of African peculiarities, in whose single person they were all strongly developed. His flat nose was dilated to unusual width, and his ebony cheeks fairly glistened with delight, as he looked up at the gambols of a large monkey, which, clinging to the main-stay, just above Jake's woolly head, was chattering and grinning back at the negro, as if there existed some means of mutual intelligence between them. It was my watch on deck, and I had been standing several minutes leaning on the main fife-rail, amusing myself by observing the antics of the black and his congenial playmate; but at length, tiring of the rude mirth, had turned towards the taffrail, to gaze on the more agreeable features of that scene which I have feebly attempted to describe. Just at that moment a shout and a merry laugh burst upon my ears, and looking quickly round, to ascertain the cause of the unusual sound on a frigate's deck, I saw little Bob Stay (as we called our commodore's son) standing half the way up the main-hatch ladder, clapping his hands, and looking aloft at some object that seemed to inspire him with a deal of glee. A single glance to the main-yard explained the occasion of his merriment. He had been coming up from the gun-deck, when Jacko, perceiving him on the ladder, dropped suddenly down from the main-stay, and running along the boom-cover, leaped upon Bob's shoulder, seized his cap from his head, and immediately darted up the maintopsail sheet, and thence to the bunt of the mainyard, where he now set, picking threads from the tassel of his prize, and occasionally scratching his side, and chattering as if with exultation for the success of his mischief. But, Bob was a sprightly, active little fellow; and though he could not climb quite as nimble as a monkey, yet he had no mind to lose his cap without an effort to regain it. Perhaps he was the more strongly incited to make chase after Jacko, from noticing me to smile at his plight, or by the loud laugh of Jake, who seemed inexpressibly delighted at the occurrence, and endeavored to evince, by tumbling about the boom-cloth, shaking his huge miss-shapen head, and sundry other grotesque actions, the pleasures for which he had no words.