Picked Up at Sea

"Sail-ho on the weather-bow!" "What do you make it?" "Looks like a ship's mast, with the yard attached, and a man a-holding on to it and hailing us for help—leastways, that's what it seems to me!" "Jerusalem! On the weather-bow, you say? Can we forereach him on this tack?" "I reckon we can jist about do it, boss, if you put the helm up a bit kinder nearer the wind," drawled out the lookout from his post of observation in the main-top, where he had stopped a moment on catching sight of the object floating in the water ahead of the vessel, as he was coming down from aloft after restowing the bunt of the main-topgallantsail that had blown loose from its lashings.