My First Cruise | Page 3

I succeeded in getting into the shrouds. The sun had now gone down, the sky was overcast, and the sea had a leaden gloomy look--there was a swell also, and the ship rolled so much from side to side, that, as I looked up and saw the mastheads forming arches in the sky, I could not help fancying that I should be sent off when I got up there like a stone from a sling, or an ancient catapult, right into the water. The idea made me hold on very tight, let me tell you; yet, as it would never do to give it up, on I went with my teeth pretty closely clenched, and my eyes fixed on the top, which seemed to grow farther and farther away from me, like Jack's bean-stalk. At last I got up just under the top. There are two ways of getting on to it. One is by going along some ropes, called the futtock shrouds, when one hangs very much as a fly does crawling along the ceiling. I didn't like it, being up there all alone in the gloom, for it was very different to climbing an apple-tree or the oak-tree at the bottom of the lawn, with our nest on the top of it, where you and I used to sit and smoke cane cigars, and fancy ourselves Istelson and Collingwood. It wasn't pleasant going along the futtock shrouds, and still less getting round them outside into the top, for as the ship rolled it felt as if the mast was coming right down on the top of me. I waited, however, holding on as a cat does to a bough when you shake it, till the ship rolled over the other way, and then up I sprang easily enough, and there I saw Dickey Snookes and Polly and My Lord all standing by the side of the captain of the top, and grinning from ear to ear, as if they had some very good joke in hand. At first I thought that the captain of the top was a very important person, but I soon found that he was only one of the seamen who is more active and smarter than the rest, and takes command of those aloft. "Here comes Midshipman Green," they all exclaimed, as they saw my head appearing between the topmast shrouds. When I stood in the top they all insisted on shaking hands with me, pinching my fingers terribly. "And so you want to see our garden up here," said Snookes; "you're the greenest thing we've got in it just now, let me tell you--ha! ha! ha!"
I didn't see anything to laugh at; but I laughed just to keep them company, thinking the joke was over. However, before I knew what they were about they caught hold of me, and while one blinded my eyes with a handkerchief, I found myself lashed up to the rigging with my arms and legs spread out just like the eagle on a Russian flag. Presently all was silent. The ship kept rolling backwards and forwards as before, and I began to feel somewhat queer in the region of my waistband and right up to my throat, still I wouldn't cry out. Suddenly I found the bandage whisked off my eyes, and then I could see only one top man standing on the other side of the top, but my messmates had disappeared. I called to the man. He touched his hat with the greatest respect. I told him to cast me loose. "My orders were, sir, not to touch you," he answered. I argued the point. "Well, sir, if as how you pays your footing, I'll do it," he replied; "but, sir, you'll take care that I'm not tied up and get two dozen for disobeying orders." I was ready to promise anything, for it was very unpleasant rolling about up there in the dark. After some hesitation and further talk, Tom Hansard, that was the topman's name, cut off the lashings. I gave him five shillings, all the money I had in my pocket. "You'll keep it secret, sir," said he. "You'll say nothing against a poor fellow like me, sir; that you won't, I know." I promised him, and he then helped me down through the lubber's hole, for as to going down outside, I couldn't just then have done it to save my life. When I got back to the berth, there were all my three messmates seated round the table, taking their tea, and pretending to be very much astonished at hearing all which had happened to me. Of course, I said nothing about Tom Hansard, and they pretended that they could not make out how I had got loose. I found out,