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At length the main royal mast of the latter gave way in the strain, which gave the stranger so much the advantage that he effected a junction with his consort.

The royal masts had been got down early on the previous afternoon so as to reduce top-hamper to a minimum, but the pitching and rolling were frightful, yet she made but little water.

He could feel the royal mast swaying and whipping like a fishing-rod—the stays were as tight as the strings of a fiddle.

Two of her heavy guns passed entirely over us, clearing our royal masts, and falling into the water about twenty feet on our port beam.

There were no royal masts, but she had two sprit-sail yards under the bowsprit and jib boom, and a huge lateen yard on the mizzen that took the place of the cro'-jack.