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- 2026-01-30T20:48:14.838Z
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- 3045
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- CHAPTER XVI.
AT DEAD OF NIGHT HE IS SENT UP TO LOOSE THE MAIN-SKYSAIL
I must now run back a little, and tell of my first going aloft at
middle watch, when the sea was quite calm, and the breeze was mild.
The order was given to loose the _main-skysail,_ which is the fifth and
highest sail from deck. It was a very small sail, and from the
forecastle looked no bigger than a cambric pocket-handkerchief. But I
have heard that some ships carry still smaller sails, above the
skysail; called _moon-sails,_ and _skyscrapers,_ and _cloud-rakers._
But I shall not believe in them till I see them; a _skysail_ seems high
enough in all conscience; and the idea of any thing higher than that,
seems preposterous. Besides, it looks almost like tempting heaven, to
brush the very firmament so, and almost put the eyes of the stars out;
when a flaw of wind, too, might very soon take the conceit out of these
cloud-defying _cloud-rakers._
Now, when the order was passed to loose the skysail, an old Dutch
sailor came up to me, and said, “Buttons, my boy, it’s high time you be
doing something; and it’s boy’s business, Buttons, to loose de royals,
and not old men’s business, like me. Now, d’ye see dat leelle fellow
way up dare? _dare,_ just behind dem stars dare: well, tumble up, now,
Buttons, I zay, and looze him; way you go, Buttons.”
All the rest joining in, and seeming unanimous in the opinion, that it
was high time for me to be stirring myself, and doing _boy’s business,_
as they called it, I made no more ado, but jumped into the rigging. Up
I went, not daring to look down, but keeping my eyes glued, as it were,
to the shrouds, as I ascended.
It was a long road up those stairs, and I began to pant and breathe
hard, before I was half way. But I kept at it till I got to the
_Jacob’s Ladder;_ and they may well call it so, for it took me almost
into the clouds; and at last, to my own amazement, I found myself
hanging on the skysail-yard, holding on might and main to the mast; and
curling my feet round the rigging, as if they were another pair of
hands.
For a few moments I stood awe-stricken and mute. I could not see far
out upon the ocean, owing to the darkness of the night; and from my
lofty perch, the sea looked like a great, black gulf, hemmed in, all
round, by beetling black cliffs. I seemed all alone; treading the
midnight clouds; and every second, expected to find myself
falling—falling—falling, as I have felt when the nightmare has been on
me.
I could but just perceive the ship below me, like a long narrow plank
in the water; and it did not seem to belong at all to the yard, over
which I was hanging. A gull, or some sort of sea-fowl, was flying round
the truck over my head, within a few yards of my face; and it almost
frightened me to hear it; it seemed so much like a spirit, at such a
lofty and solitary height.
Though there was a pretty smooth sea, and little wind; yet, at this
extreme elevation, the ship’s motion was very great; so that when the
ship rolled one way, I felt something as a fly must feel, walking the
ceiling; and when it rolled the other way, I felt as if I was hanging
along a slanting pine-tree.
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