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means of communicating to the frigate, that, if she would. only stand on a little further, she would disentangle herself from the cloud, in which, like Jupiter Olympius of old, she was wasting her thunder.

At last, the captain, hopeless of its clearing up,2 gave orders to pipe to dinner; but as the weather, in all respects except this impenetrable mist, was quite fine, and the ship was still in deep water, he directed her to be steered towards the shore, and the lead kept constantly going. As one o'clock approached, he began to feel uneasy, from the water shoaling, and the light-house guns sounding closer and closer; but being unwilling to disturb the men 7 at their dinner, he resolved to stand on for the remaining ten minutes of the hour.9 Lo and behold! however, they had not sailed 10 half a mile further, before the flying-jib-boom end 11 emerged from the wall of fog, then the bowsprit 12 shot into 13 daylight, and, lastly, the ship herself glided out of the cloud into the full blaze of a bright and sunshine holiday."14 All hands were instantly turned up to make sail; and the men, as they flew on deck,15 could scarcely believe 16 their senses when they saw behind them the huge bank, right ahead the harbour's

1

66

comme le Jupiter du vieil Olympe, elle consumait en vain. 2 See page 21, note 3.

3 commanded to the crew to dine.'

4et... (see page 17, note 6) il y avait assez d'eau sous la quille. 5 il fit gouverner le vaisseau vers le rivage sans discontinuer d'aller la sonde à la main.

6 de sentir progressivement diminuer le brassiage et d'entendre le son du canon.

7 ses matelots, here.

8 de se porter encore sur le rivage.

Simply, 'during ten minutes.' 10 Tout à coup (page 148, note 2), à peine le Cambrien avait-il marché. The verb marcher does not c mean to march,' and 'to also used in a far more

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stances, even if the guns had been fired by the light-house. But it will often happen that it becomes an officer's duty1 to put his ship, as well as his life, in hazard; and this appears to have been exactly one of those cases. Captain Hickey was charged with urgent despatches relative to the enemy's fleet, which it was of the greatest importance should be delivered2 without an hour's delay. But there was every appearance of this fog lasting a week; and as he and his officers had passed over the ground3 a hundred times before, and were as intimately acquainted with the spot as any pilot could be, it was resolved to try the bold experiment; and the ship was forthwith steered in the supposed direction of Halifax.

They had not, however, stood on far, before one of the look-out men exclaimed, “Breakers ahead! hard a-starboard!"4 But it was too late, for, before the helm could be put over, the ship was amongst those formidable reefs known by the name of the Sisters' Rocks, or eastern ledge of Sambro Island. The rudder and half of the stern-post,7 together with great part of the false keel, were driven off at the first blow, and floated up alongside. There is some reason to believe, indeed, that a portion of the bottom

1 Mais il est souvent du devoir d'un officier.

2 qu'il était important de remettre. The English construction is elliptical for which it was of the greatest importance that they should be delivered,' and I need not explain how this turn is altogether ungrammatical. I have already commented (page 91, note 13) upon the irregularity of such a construction, or a similar one; since writing the note referred to, I have met with this other phrase in Fénelon's same work, p. 140: -"Il semble qu'Astrée, qu'on dit qui est retirée dans le ciel "-literally, whom they say who is retired.' Fénelon should have written, "qu'on dit être retirée," a construction which is perfectly correct (see page 7, note 2).

3 fait la même route.

4 Ils n'avaient encore parcouru que quelques milles (mille takes s in the plural only when it is, as here, a noun), lorsqu'une des vigies s'écria: "Brisants en avant à nous! tout à tribord!"-The word vigie is always feminine; and sentinelle (I mean, of course, when taken in the sense of a man standing sentry,' for in the other sense it is invariably feminine) is more frequently used also in the feminine.

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5 avant qu'il pût mettre la barre au vent.

6 sous.

7 Le gouvernail et la moitié de l'étambot.

8 de la fausse quille.

9 'alongside,' le long du bord.

2

of the ship,1 loaded with 120 tons of iron ballast, was torn from the upper works3 by this fearful blow, and that the ship, which instantly filled with water, was afterwards buoyed up merely by the empty casks, till the decks and sides were burst through or riven asunder by the

waves.

5

12

8

The captain, who, throughout the whole scene, continued as composed as if nothing remarkable had occurred, now ordered the guns to be thrown overboard ;7 but before one of them could be cast loose, or a breeching cut, the ship fell over 10 so much that the men could not stand.11 It was, therefore, with great difficulty that a few guns were fired as signals of distress. In the same breath that this order was given, Captain Hickey desired the yard tackles to be hooked,13 in order that the pinnace might be hoisted out; 14 but as the masts, deprived of their foundation, barely stood, tottering from side to side, the people were called down again.15 The quarter boats were then lowered into the water with some 16 difficulty; but the jolly-boat,17 which happened to be on the poop undergoing repairs, 18 in being launched overboard,19 struck against one of the stern davits,20 bilged and went down.2 As the ship was now falling fast over on her beam ends,2 directions were given to cut away the fore and main masts.23 Fortunately, they fell without injuring the large boat on

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14 Turn, in order that one might keep oneself ready to hoist out the pinnace' (à mettre la pinasse à la mer).

15 tout l'équipage fut rappelé à son poste.

16 Les bateaux de pilote furent alors mis à l'eau, non sans.

17 le petit canot.

18

en réparation sur la dunette. 19 par-dessus le bord.

20 des daviers de l'avant.

21

son

creva et coula à fond. 22 s'affaissait toujours sur maître-bau (midship beam). 23 d'abattre le mât de misaine et le grand mât.

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the booms1-their grand hope. At the instant of this crash, the ship parted in two, between the main and mizen masts;2 and within a few seconds afterwards, she again broke right across, between the fore and main masts: so that the poor Atalante now formed a mere wreck, divided into three pieces,3 crumbling into smaller fragments at every send of the swell.4

By this time a considerable crowd of the men had scrambled into the pinnace on the booms,5 in hopes that she might float off as the ship sunk ;7 but Captain Hickey, seeing that the boat so loaded could never swim,8 desired some twenty of the men to quit her; and, what is particularly worthy of remark, his orders, which were given with the most perfect coolness, were as promptly obeyed as ever. Throughout the whole of these trying moments, indeed, the discipline of the ship appears to have been maintained, not only without the smallest trace of insubordination, but with a degree of cheerfulness which is described as truly wonderful. Even when the masts fell,

the sound of the crashing spars were drowned in the animating huzzas of the undaunted crew, though they 10 were then clinging to the weather gunwale,11 with the sea, from time to time, making a clean breach over them, and when they were expecting every instant to be carried to the bottom !

As soon as the pinnace was relieved from the pressure of the crowd, she floated off the booms,12 or rather was knocked off by a sea, 13 which turned her bottom upwards, and whelmed her into the surf 14 amidst the fragments of the wreck. The people, however, imitating the gallant bear

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