Jules Verne For Children: 16 Incredible Tales of Mystery, Courage & Adventure (Illustrated Edition). Jules Verne
to hoist the top-sails, the royal, the fore-staff, and the stay-sails.
“My friends,” said the novice to the five blacks, “do as I tell you, and all will go right.”
Dick Sand was standing at the wheel of the helm.
“Go!” cried he. “Tom, let go that rope quickly!”
“Let go?” said Tom, who did not understand that expression.
“Yes, loosen it! Now you, Bat—the same thing! Good! Heave—haul taut. Let us see, pull it in!”
“Like that?” said Bat.
“Yes, like that. Very good. Come, Hercules—strong. A good pull there!”
To say “strong” to Hercules was, perhaps, imprudent. The giant of course gave a pull that brought down the rope.
“Oh! not so strong, my honest fellow!” cried Dick Sand, smiling. “You are going to bring down the masts!”
“I have hardly pulled,” replied Hercules.
“Well, only make believe! You will see that that will be enough! Well, slacken—cast off! Make fast—Make fast—like that! Good! All together! Heave—pull on the braces.”
And the whole breadth of the foremast, whose larboard braces had been loosened, turned slowly. The wind then swelling the sails imparted a certain speed to the ship.
Dick Sand then had the jib sheet-ropes loosened. Then he called the blacks aft:
“Behold what is done, my friends, and well done. Now let us attend to the mainmast. But break nothing, Hercules.”
“I shall try,” replied the colossus, without being willing to promise more.
This second operation was quite easy. The main-boom sheet-rope having been let go gently, the brigantine took the wind more regularly, and added its powerful action to that of the forward sails.
The fore-staff was then set above the brigantine, and, as it is simply brailed up, there was nothing to do but bear on the rope, to haul aboard, then to secure it. But Hercules pulled so hard, along with his friend Acteon, without counting little Jack, who had joined them, that the rope broke off.
All three fell backwards—happily, without hurting themselves. Jack was enchanted.
“That’s nothing! that’s nothing!” cried the novice. “Fasten the two ends together for this time and hoist softly!”
That was done under Dick Sand’s eyes, while he had not yet left the helm. The Pilgrim was already sailing rapidly, headed to the east, and there was nothing more to be done but keep it in that direction. Nothing easier, because the wind was favorable, and lurches were not to be feared.
“Good, my friends!” said the novice. “You will be good sailors before the end of the voyage!”
“We shall do our best, Captain Sand,” replied Tom.
Mrs. Weldon also complimented those honest men.
Little Jack himself received his share of praise, for he had worked bravely.
“Indeed, I believe, Mr. Jack,” said Hercules, smiling, “that it was you who broke the rope. What a good little fist you have. Without you we should have done nothing right.”
And little Jack, very proud of himself, shook his friend Hercules’ hand vigorously.
The setting of the Pilgrim’s sails was not yet complete. She still lacked those top-sails whose action is not to be despised under this full-sail movement. Top-sail, royal, stay-sails, would add sensibly to the schooner’s speed, and Dick Sand resolved to set them.
This operation would be more difficult than the others, not for the stay-sails, which could be hoisted, hauled aboard and fastened from below, but for the cross-jacks of the foremast. It was necessary to climb to the spars to let them out, and Dick Sand, not wishing to expose any one of his improvised crew, undertook to do it himself.
He then called Tom and put him at the wheel, showing him how he should keep the ship. Then Hercules, Bat, Acteon and Austin being placed, some at the royal halyards, others at those of the top-sails, he proceeded up the mast. To climb the rattlings of the fore-shrouds, then the rattlings of the topmast-shrouds, to gain the spars, that was only play for the young novice. In a minute he was on the foot-rope of the top-sail yard, and he let go the rope-bands which kept the sail bound.
Then he stood on the spars again and climbed on the royal yard, where he let out the sail rapidly.
Dick Sand had finished his task, and seizing one of the starboard backstays, he slid to the deck.
There, under his directions, the two sails were vigorously hauled and fastened, then the two yards hoisted to the block. The stay-sails being set next between the mainmast and the foremast, the work was finished. Hercules had broken nothing this time.
The Pilgrim then carried all the sails that composed her rigging. Doubtless Dick Sand could still add the foremast studding-sails to larboard, but it was difficult work under the present circumstances, and should it be necessary to take them in, in case of a squall, it could not be done fast enough. So the novice stopped there.
Tom was relieved from his post at the wheel, which Dick Sand took charge of again.
The breeze freshened. The Pilgrim, making a slight turn to starboard, glided rapidly over the surface of the sea, leaving behind her a very flat track, which bore witness to the purity of her water-line.
“We are well under way, Mrs. Weldon,” then said Dick Sand, “and, now, may God preserve this favorable wind!”
Mrs. Weldon pressed the young man’s hand. Then, fatigued with all the emotions of that last hour, she sought her cabin, and fell into a sort of painful drowsiness, which was not sleep.
The new crew remained on the schooner’s deck, watching on the forecastle, and ready to obey Dick Sand’s orders—that is to say, to change the set of the sails according to the variations of the wind; but so long as the breeze kept both that force and that direction, there would be positively nothing to do.
During all this time what had become of Cousin Benedict?
Cousin Benedict was occupied in studying with a magnifying glass an articulate which he had at last found on board—a simple orthopter, whose head disappeared under the prothorax; an insect with flat elytrums, with round abdomen, with rather long wings, which belonged to the family of the roaches, and to the species of American cockroaches.
It was exactly while ferreting in Negoro’s kitchen, that he had made that precious discovery, and at the moment when the cook was going to crush the said insect pitilessly. Thence anger, which, indeed, Negoro took no notice of.
But this Cousin Benedict, did he know what change had taken place on board since the moment when Captain Hull and his companions had commenced that fatal whale-fishing? Yes, certainly. He was even on the deck when the Pilgrim arrived in sight of the remains of the whale-boat. The schooner’s crew had then perished before his eyes.
To pretend that this catastrophe had not affected him, would be to accuse his heart. That pity for others that all people feel, he had certainly experienced it. He was equally moved by his cousin’s situation. He had come to press Mrs. Weldon’s hand, as if to say to her: “Do not be afraid. I am here. I am left to you.”
Then Cousin Benedict had turned toward his cabin, doubtless so as to reflect on the consequences of this disastrous event, and on the energetic measures that he must take. But on his way he had met the cockroach in question, and his desire was—held, however, against certain entomologists—to prove the cockroaches of the phoraspe species, remarkable for their colors, have very different habits from cockroaches properly so called; he had given himself up to the study, forgetting both that there had been a Captain Hull in command of the Pilgrim, and that that unfortunate