Mr. Lewis proceeds to recount a very daring act of his own. "We were sending down upper yards and topgallant mast one evening, and it was my duty to make fast the lizard. But I could only make fast one hitch, so I slid down the mast rope and it turned me right over, but I managed to catch the lizard and hold on to it, and so saved the mast from falling on the hundred men that were in the gangway. No doubt if it had fallen on them it would have killed a good many...."
What happened was that Lewis, in the tearing speed of the evolution, not having time properly to secure the head of the mast as it was coming down, held the fastening in place while clinging to the mast rope and so came hurtling down with the mast. He adds that he "felt very proud"--and well he might--when the captain "told the admiral on Sunday that I was the smartest man aloft that he had ever seen during his time in the Service." He had an even narrower escape. "I was at the yard-arm when we had just crossed" (hoisted into place). "I was pulling down the royal sheet and someone had let it go on deck, and I fell backwards off the yard head-foremost. I had my arm through the strop of the jewel block, and it held me, and dropped me in the topmast rigging, and some of my topmates caught me."
Mr. Lewis himself was one of the smartest and quickest men aloft I have ever seen during the whole of my career. The men of other ships used to watch him going aloft. "My best time," he writes--and I can confirm his statement "from ''way aloft' to the topgallant yard-arm was 13 seconds, which was never beaten." It was equalled, however, by Ninepin Jones on the foretopgallant yard. The topgallant and royal yard men started from the maintop, inside of the topmast rigging, at the order '"way aloft." The height to be run from the top, inside of the topmast rigging, { 24} to the topgallant yard-arm was 64 feet. From the deck to the maintop was 67 feet. At one time, the upper-yard men used to start from the deck at the word "away aloft"; but the strain of going aloft so high and at so great a speed injured their hearts and lungs, so that they ascended first to the top, and there awaited the order "away aloft."
The orders were therefore altered. They were: first, "midshipmen aloft," when the midshipmen went aloft to the tops; second, "upper-yard men aloft," when the upper-yard men went aloft to the tops, and one midshipman went from the top to the masthead.