The carpenter said
it was the best stick he had ever seen. The strength of all hands soon
brought the tack to the boom-end, and the sheet was trimmed down,
and the preventer and the weather brace hauled taught to take off
the strain. Every rope-yarn seemed stretched to the utmost, and
every thread of canvas; and with this sail added to her, the ship
sprang through the water like a thing possessed. The sail being nearly
all forward, it lifted her out of the water, and she seemed actually
to jump from sea to sea. From the time her keel was laid, she had
never been so driven; and had it been life or death with every one
of us, she could not have borne another stitch of canvas.
Finding that she would bear the sail, the hands were sent below, and
our watch remained on deck. Two men at the wheel had as much as they
could do to keep her within three points of her course, for she
steered as wild as a young colt. The mate walked the deck, looking
at the sails, and then over the side to see the foam fly by her,
slapping his hands upon his thighs and talking to the ship- "Hurrah,
you jade, you've got the scent!- you know where you're going!" And
when she leaped over the seas, and almost out of the water, and
trembled to her very keel, the spars and masts snapping and
creaking,- "There she goes!- There she goes,- handsomely!- as long as
she cracks she holds!"- while we stood with the rigging laid down
fair for letting go, and ready to take in sail and clear away, if
anything went.
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