The Island Treasure | Page 3

sailors can be driven in

these days by a brutal captain and hard taskmaster!
This it was that made them loth to leave their snug and warm fo'c's'le,
filled as it was with the grateful odour of the appetising lobscouse
which Sam Jedfoot, the negro cook, a great favourite with the crew by
reason of his careful attention to their creature comforts, had so
thoughtfully compounded for them; and thus it was that they crawled
up the hatchway from below so laggardly, in response to the
second-mate's pleading order and Captain Snaggs second stentorian
hail, as if they were ascending a mountain, and each man had a couple
of half-hundred weights tied to his legs, so as to make his movements
the slower.
"Hoo-ry oop, mans!" cried the second-mate, in his queer foreign lingo.
"Hoo-ry oop, or you vill have ze skipper after yous! He vas look as if
he vas comin' down ze poop ladder joost now!"
"Durn the skipper! He ain't got no more feelin' in his old carkiss than a
Rock Island clam!" muttered the leading man of the disturbed watch, as
he stepped out over the coaming of the hatchway on to the deck, as
leisurely as if he were executing a step in the sword dance; but, the next
moment, as his eye took in the position of the ship and the scene
around, the wind catching him at the moment, and almost knocking
him backwards down the hatchway, as it met him full butt, he made a
dash for the weather rigging, shouting out to his companions behind,
who were coming up out of the fo'c's'le just as slowly as he had done:
"Look alive, mates! Ther's a reg'lar screamer blowin' up, an' no mistake.
We'll be took aback, if we don't get in our rags in time. Look smart; an'
let's show the skipper how spry we ken be when we chooses!"
The captain, or `skipper', soon supplemented this advice by another of
his roaring commands, yelled out at a pitch of voice that defied alike
the shriek of the wind, and the noise of the sea, and the slatting of the
huge topsails as they bellied out into balloons one moment and then
flapped back again with a bang against the swaying masts, that
quivered again and again with the shock, as if the next blow would
knock them out of the ship.

"Forrud there! Away aloft, ye lazy skunks!" cried Captain Snaggs,
when he saw the watch at last turn out, gripping the brass poop rail in
front of him with both hands, so as to steady himself and prevent his
taking a header into the waist below, as he seemed to be on the point of
doing every minute, in his excitement. "Lay out, thaar, on the yards, ye
skulking lubbers! Lay out, thaar, d'ye hear? Thaar's no time to lose!
Sharp's the word an' quick the motion!"
The starboard watch, which had been waiting for the others, at once
rounded the weather braces, so as to take the wind out of the sails as the
men raced aloft, each anxious now to be first out on the yard; and, the
reef tackle being hauled out, the spilling lines were clutched hold of,
and the heavy folds of the canvas gathered up, the men at the yard-arms
seeing to the earring being clear and ready for passing, with the hands
facing to leeward, so as to lighten the sail and assist the weather earring
being hauled out, as they held the reef-line, and again facing to
windward and lightening the sail there in the same fashion, so as to
haul out the lee-earring before the signal was given by those out at the
end of the yard-arms to "toggle away!"
It was risky work, especially as the ship was rather shorthanded, to
attempt reefing the three topsails all at once, but the job was at last
accomplished to the captain's apparent satisfaction, for he sang out for
them to come down from aloft; when, the topsail halliards being
brought to the capstan, the yards were bowsed again, the slack of the
ropes coiled down, and everything made comfortable.
Captain Snaggs, however, had not done with them yet.
"Clew up an' furl the mainsail!"
"Man the jib down-haul!"
"Brail up the spanker!"
He shouted out these several orders as quickly as he could bawl them,
the creaking of the cordage and rattling of the clew-garnet blocks
forming a fitting accompaniment to his twangy voice; while the

plaintive `Yo--ho--hoy--e! Yo--ho--hai--e!' of the men, as they hauled
upon the clewlines and leech and buntlines of the heavy main course,
chimed in musically with the wash of the waves as they broke over the
bows, dashing high over the yard-arms in a cataract of spray, and
wetting