Chapter 59 - Page 2

rearing
and plunging under us, like a runaway steed; each man gripping his
reef-point, and sideways leaning, dragging the sail over toward Jackson,
whose business it was to confine the reef corner to the yard.

His hat and shoes were off; and he rode the yard-arm end, leaning
backward to the gale, and pulling at the earing-rope, like a bridle. At
all times, this is a moment of frantic exertion with sailors, whose
spirits seem then to partake of the commotion of the elements, as they
hang in the gale, between heaven and earth; and then it is, too, that
they are the most profane.

"Haul out to windward!" coughed Jackson, with a blasphemous cry, and he
threw himself back with a violent strain upon the bridle in his hand.
But the wild words were hardly out of his mouth, when his hands dropped
to his side, and the bellying sail was spattered with a torrent of blood
from his lungs.

As the man next him stretched out his arm to save, Jackson fell headlong
from the yard, and with a long seethe, plunged like a diver into the
sea.

It was when the ship had rolled to windward, which, with the long
projection of the yard-arm over the side, made him strike far out upon
the water. His fall was seen by the whole upward-gazing crowd on deck,
some of whom were spotted with the blood that trickled from the sail,
while they raised a spontaneous cry, so shrill and wild, that a blind
man might have known something deadly had happened.

Clutching our reef-points, we hung over the stick, and gazed down to the
one white, bubbling spot, which had closed over the head of our
shipmate; but the next minute it was brewed into the common yeast of the
waves, and Jackson never arose. We waited a few minutes, expecting an
order to descend, haul back the fore-yard, and man the boat; but instead
of that, the next sound that greeted us was, "Bear a hand, and reef
away, men!" from the mate.

Indeed, upon reflection, it would have been idle to attempt to save
Jackson; for besides that he must have been dead, ere he struck the
sea--and if he had not been dead then, the first immersion must have
driven his soul from his lacerated lungs--our jolly-boat would have
taken full fifteen minutes to launch into the waves.

And here it should be said, that the thoughtless security in which too
many sea-captains indulge, would, in case of some sudden disaster
befalling the Highlander, have let us all drop into our graves.

Like most merchant ships, we had but two boats: the longboat and the
jolly-boat. The long boat, by far the largest and stoutest of the two,
was permanently bolted down to the deck, by iron bars attached to its
sides. It was almost as much of a fixture as the vessel's keel. It was