But the main-topsail was another matter. All three of us had to lay out to windward to haul taut one earring; then skim along to the other end of the yard to the other earring; and so up and down, and still more reef-points and still more earrings, until my legs and fingers ached. This job over, we rested ourselves in the main-top, and then got upon the main-yard, and made shift to pass the yard-arm gaskets round the sail and stow it after a fashion, though I had no doubt that the first gale of wind that struck it would blow it clear of its lashings in a minute. Then on deck again with the main-topsail halliards to the capstan; and the dawn found the ship under three close-reefed topsails, foresail, and fore-topmast staysail, the whole of the other canvas having been reefed and stowed by three worn-out men, one of whom had been pretty nearly knocked up by the fight with the mutineers, the second of whom was fresh from an imprisonment of three days in a close, stifling, and rat-swarming coal-hole, whilst the third had received such a crack on his wrist as would have sent any man but an English sailor to his hammock and kept him ill and groaning for a month. END OF VOL. II. LONDON: PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS. Transcriber's Notes: Cover and Table of Contents created by Transcriber and placed in the Public Domain. Punctuation and spelling were made consistent when a predominant preference was found in the three volumes of this novel, or to remedy simple typographical errors; otherwise they were not changed. Dialect and other non-standard spellings have not been changed. Spaces before the contraction "'ll" (for "will") have been retained. Ambiguous hyphens at the ends of lines have been retained. Page 82: "Sailors don't no nothing" is printed as "know" in a different edition of this book. Page 203: The closing quotation mark after "of them? He didn't understand." perhaps should be after "of them?" End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Wreck of the Grosvenor, Volume 2 of 3, by William Clark Russell