The first who sprang to the ratlines was Hunt.

The second was Martin Holt; Burry and one of the recruits followed them.

I could not have believed that any man could display such skill and agility as Hunt's.

His hands and feet hardly caught the ratlines.

Having reached the crossbars first, he stretched himself on the ropes to the end of the yard, while Holt went to the other end, and the two recruits remained in the middle.
While the men were working, and the tempest was raging round us, a terrific lurch of the ship to starboard under the stroke of a mountainous wave, flung everything on the deck into wild confusion, and the sea rushed in through the scupper-holes.