A very capital vessel, Mr. Monday,
or she would have rolled the pumps out of her, and capsized the galley."
No attempt being made to save anything, the wreck was floating astern in
five minutes, and the ship was fortunately extricated from this new
hazard. Mr. Truck, in spite of his acquired coolness, looked piteously at
all that gallant hamper, in which he had so lately rejoiced, as yard-arm,
cross-trees, tressel-trees, and tops rose on the summits of swells or
settled in the troughs, like whales playing their gambols. But habit is a
seaman's philosophy, and in no one feature is his character more
respectable than in that manliness which disinclines him to mourn over a
misfortune that is inevitable.
The Montauk now resembled a tree stripped of its branches, or a courser
crippled in his sinews; her glory had, in a great degree, departed. The
foremast alone remained, and of this even the head was gone, a
circumstance of which Captain Truck complained more than of any other, as,
to use his own expressions, "it destroyed the symmetry of the spar, which
had proved itself to be a good stick." What, however, was of more real
importance, it rendered it difficult, if not impossible, to get up a spare
topmast forward. As both the main and mizzen-mast had gone quite near the
deck, this was almost the only tolerably easy expedient that remained;
and, within an hour of the accident, Mr.
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