It was clear we had got an ugly customer--poor Jenkins now called to
Treenail, who was standing forward near the gun which had been fired "Och,
sir, and it's badly wounded we are here."
The officer was a Patlander, as well as the seaman. "Which of you my bov?"
the growing seriousness of the affair in no way checking his propensity to
fun,--"Which of you,--you, or the yard?"
"Both of us, your honour; but the yard badliest."
"The devil!--Come down, then, or get into the top, and I will you looked
after presently."
The poor fellow crawled off the yard into the foretop, as he was ordered,
where he was found after the brush, badly wounded by a splinter in the
breast.
Jonathan, no doubt "calculated," as well he might, that this taste of his
quality would be quite sufficient for a little eighteen--gun sloop, close
under his lee; but the fight was not to be so easily taken out of Deadeye,
although even to his optic it was now high time to be off.
"All hands make sail, Mr Splinter; that chap is too heavy for us. Mr
Kelson," to the carpenter, "jump up and see what the foreyard will carry.
Keep her away, my man," to the seaman at the helm. "Crack on, Mr Splinter,
shake all the reefs out,---set the fore--topsail, and loose
topgallant--sails;--stand by to sheet home; and see all clear to rig the
booms out, if the breeze lulls."
In less than a minute we were bowling along before it; but the wind was
breezing up again, and no one could say how long the wounded foreyard would
carry the weight and drag of the sails.
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