Explore "Redburn" by Herman Melville on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
I must now run back a little, and tell of my first going aloft at middle watch, when the sea was quite calm, and the breeze was mild.
The order was given to loose the _main-skysail,_ which is the fifth and highest sail from deck. It was a very small sail, and from the forecastle looked no bigger than a cambric pocket-handkerchief. But I have heard that some ships carry still smaller sails, above the skysail; called _moon-sails,_ and _skyscrapers,_ and _cloud-rakers._ But I shall not believe in them till I see them; a _skysail_ seems high enough in all conscience; and the idea of any thing higher than that, seems preposterous. Besides, it looks almost like tempting heaven, to brush the very firmament so, and almost put the eyes of the stars out; when a flaw of wind, too, might very soon take the conceit out of these cloud-defying _cloud-rakers._