I do not quite believe this; but
certainly I never witnessed such an expression of fear. A dozen men
were soon pouring into the top, while two others were stealing up the
stay, and four or five had got into the topmast-shrouds, to cut off
his retreat in that direction; finally, an active fellow leaped from
the rigging to the topmast, and sliding down the well-greased spar,
almost plumped on the devoted head of this master of the revels. It
was now absolutely necessary for Jacko to do something; so he made a
clear run down the main lift to the lower yard-arm. The gunner's mate
foreseeing this manoeuvre, had sprung to guard his department, and had
already lain out as far as the inner boom iron, with a gasket in his
hand, and quite certain of catching the chase. Not a bit! "A gunner's
mate catch a monkey!" The fable of the Tortoise and the Hare affords
but a feeble simile to characterize such a match; and before old
Hard-a-weather and his gasket had reached the yard-arm, our nimble
Mona had trotted half-way up the leach of the topsail, and was seated
as familiarly on the bridle of the maintop-bowline, as if he had been
perched on the feathery branch of a cocoa-nut tree, enjoying the sea
breeze, in his native island, amongst the beautiful Cape de Verdes.

The sailors were now fairly baffled, and still more so when the expert
rogue chose to climb a little higher, and then to walk deliberately
along the standing part of the main-topsail brace to the mizen-topmast
head; whence, as if to divert himself, or force his pursuers to mingle
admiration with their rage, he made a flying leap downwards to the
peak haulyards, scampering along the single part till he reached the
end of the gaff. There he sat laughing at a hundred and fifty men and
boys, employed in the vain attempt to catch one monkey!

Sailors are certainly not men to give up a pursuit lightly; but after
an hour of as hard labour as I ever witnessed, they were all obliged
to relinquish the chase from sheer fatigue, and poor Jacko was
pardoned by acclamation. The captain of the foretop, however, a couple
of days afterwards, more out of fun than from any ill-will on the old
grog score, gave the monkey's ear a pinch, upon which the animal
snapped at his thumb, and bit it so seriously that the man was obliged
to apply to the doctor. When this was reported to me by the surgeon, I
began to think my four-footed friend was either getting rather too
much licence, or that too man