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The topsail sheets and halliards, of course, had been let fly before we left the deck; but in order not to expose the sail more than could be helped to the force of the storm, the clewlines and buntlines were not hauled open until we were up on the yard, so that the topsail should not remain longer bagged in folds than necessary before we could furl it out of harm's way. Still, the precaution was of no avail; for hardly had the men on deck handed the clewlines, when the sail, bulging out under our feet like a huge bag, or rather series of bags, as the wind puckered its folds, burst away from its bolt-ropes with a noise like the report of a gun discharged close to our ears, just as if we had cut it from off the yard, thus saving us any further trouble in furling it. Casting my eyes round ere beginning the perilous task of climbing down the shrouds again, for it was as much as one could do to hold on, the sharp gusts when they caught one's legs twirling them about like feathers in the air, the outlook was not merely grand but positively awful. The sea was now rolling, without the slightest exaggeration but literally speaking, mountains high as far as the eye could reach, and the scud flying across my face in the mizzen cross-trees; while the waves on either side of the ship, as we descended into the hollow between them every now and then, were on a level with the yard-arms below and even sometimes rose above these. "Come, my men," I heard Mr Mackay calling out, as I at last put my foot down to feel for the nearest ratline before commencing to descend the rigging, "look sharp with that fore-tops'le or we'll have it go like the mizzen!" His words were prophetic. "R-r-r-r-r-r-ip!" sounded the renting, tearing noise of the sail, almost as soon as he spoke; and then, with a greater "bang!" than that of the mizzen-topsail, the main topsail split first from clew to earing and the next second blew away bodily to leeward, floating like a cloud as it was carried along the crests of the rollers out of our ken in a minute. The fore-topsail imitated its example the next moment, leaving the ship now with only the reefed foresail on her in the shape of canvas, a wonderful metamorphosis to the appearance she presented the previous evening at sunset! We had been trying to beat to windward, so as not to fall off our course; but now that we had hardly a rag to stand by, the captain put up the helm and let her run for it, the
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