“Starboard,” said I. I had now come on deck. “Starboard, or the main topgallant-masthead will befoul of the limb of that tree. Foretop, there--lie out on the larboard fore-yardarm, and be ready to shove her off, if she sheers too close.” “Let go the anchor,” struck in the first lieutenant. Splash--the cable rumbled through the hause-hole. “Now here are we brought up in paradise,” quoth the doctor. “Curukity coo-curukity coo,” sung out a great bushy-whiskered sailor from the crows nest, who turned out to be no other than our old friend Timothy Tailtackle, quite juvenilffied by the laughing scene. “Here am I, Jack, a booby amongst the singing-birds,” crowed he to one of his messmates in the maintop, as he clutched a branch of a tree in his hand, and swung himself up into it. But the ship, as Old Nick would have it, at the very instant dropped astern a yew yards in swinging to her anchor, and that so suddenly, that she left him on his perch in the tree, converting his jest, poor fellow, into melancholy earnest. “Oh Lord, sir!” sung out Timotheus, in a great quandary. “Captain, do heave ahead a bit--Murder--I shall never get down again! Do, Mr Yerk, if you please, sir!” And there he sat twisting and craning himself about, and screwing his features into combinations evincing the most comical perplexity. The captain, by the way of a bit of fun, pretended not to hear him. “Maintop, there,” quoth he. The midshipman in the top answered him, “Ay, ay, sir.” “Not you, Mr Reefpoint; the captain of the top I want.” “He is not in the top, sir,” responded little Reefpoint, chuckling like to choke himself. “Where the devil is he, sir?” “Here, sir,” squealed Timothy, his usual gruff voice spindling into a small cheep through his great perplexity. “Here, sir.” “What are you doing there, sir? Come down this moment, sir. Rig out the main-topmast-studding-sail-boom, Mr Reefpoint, and tell him to slew himself down by that long water-withe.” To hear was to obey. Poor Timothy clambered down to the fork of the tree, from which the withe depended, and immediately began to warp himself down, until he reached within three or four yards of the starboard fore-topsail-yardarm; but the corvette still dropped astern, so that, after a vain attempt to hook on by his feet, he swung off into mid air, hanging by his hands. It was no longer a joke. “Here, you black fellows in the pilot canoe,” shouted the captain, as he threw them a rope himself. “Pass the end of that line round the stump yonder--that one below the cliff, there--now pull like devils, pull.” They did not understand a word he said; but, comprehending his gestures, did what he wished. “Now haul on the line, men--gently, that will do. Missed it again,” continued the skipper, as the poor fellow once more made a fruitless attempt to swing himself on to the yard.