"Starboard," said I. I had now come on deck. "Starboard, or the main
topgallant--masthead will befoul of the limb of that tree. Foretop,
there--lie out on the larboard fore--yardarm, and be ready to shove her
off, if she sheers too close."
"Let go the anchor," struck in the first lieutenant.
Splash--the cable rumbled through the hause--hole.
"Now here are we brought up in paradise," quoth the doctor.
"Curukity coo--curukity coo," sung out a great bushy--whiskered sailor
from the crows nest, who turned out to be no other than our old friend
Timothy Tailtackle, quite juvenilffied by the laughing scene. "Here am
I, Jack, a booby amongst the singing--birds," crowed he to one of his
messmates in the maintop, as he clutched a branch of a tree in his hand,
and swung himself up into it. But the ship, as Old Nick would have it,
at the very instant dropped astern a yew yards in swinging to her
anchor, and that so suddenly, that she left him on his perch in the
tree, converting his jest, poor fellow, into melancholy earnest. "Oh
Lord, sir!" sung out Timotheus, in a great quandary. "Captain, do heave
ahead a bit--Murder--I shall never get down again! Do, Mr Yerk, if you
please, sir!" And there he sat twisting and craning himself about, and
screwing his features into combinations evincing the most comical
perplexity.
The captain, by the way of a bit of fun, pretended not to hear him.
"Maintop, there," quoth he.
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