he emerged, no sooner did the wind hit him than he rolled down the ladder.

I sprang below, hauled him up by the collar of his jacket, and drove him with both hands to his stern up to the wheel.

"Hold on to these spokes!" I roared. And then Cornish and I ran staggering along the poop.

"Get the end of the starboard main-brace to the capstan!" I cried to him. "Look alive! ship one of the bars ready!"

And then I scrambled as best I could down on the main-deck, and went floundering forward through the water that was now washing higher than my ankle to the fore-topsail halliards, which I let go.

Crack! whiz! away went the sail, strips of it flying into the sea like smoke.

I struggled back again on to the poop, but the violence of the wind was almost more than I could bear: it beat the breath out of me; it stung my face just as if it were filled with needles; it roared in my ears; it resembled a solid wall; it rolled me off my knees and hands, and obliged me to drag myself against it bit by bit, by whatever came in my road to hold on to.

Cornish lay upon the deck with the end of the main-brace in his hands, having taken the necessary turns with it around the capstan.

I laid my weight against the bar and went to work, and scrambling and panting, beaten half dead by the wind, and no more able to look astern without protecting my eyes with my hands than I could survey any object in a room full of blinding smoke, I gradually got the mainyard round, but found I had not the strength to bring it close to the mast.

I saw the boatswain speak to the steward, who left the wheel to help me with his weight against the capstan bar.

I do think at that moment that the boatswain transformed himself into an immovable figure of iron. Heaven knows from what measureless inner sources he procured the temporary strength: he clenched his teeth, and the muscles in his hands rose like bulbs as he hung to the wheel and pitted his strength against the blows of the seas upon the rudder.

Brave, honest fellow! a true seaman, a true Englishman! Well would it be for sailors were there more of his kind among them to set them examples of honest labour, noble self-sacrifice, and duty ungrudgingly performed!

The seas struck the ship heavily as she rounded to. I feared that she would have too much head-sail to lie close, for the foresail and fore-topsail were in ribbons—they might show enough roaring canvas when coupled with the fore-topmast staysail to make her pay off, we having no after-sail set to counterbalance the effect of them.

However, she lay steady, that is, as the compass goes, but rolled fearfully, wallowing deep like a ship half full of water, and shipped such tremendous seas that I constantly expected to hear the crash of the galley stove in.

I now shaded my eyes to look astern; not hoping, indeed, to see the steamer near, but expecting at least to find her in sight. But the horizon was a dull blank: not a sign of the vessel to be seen, nothing but the rugged line of water, and the nearer deep dark under the shadow of the leaden pouring clouds.

CHAPTER III.

In bringing the ship close to the wind in this terrible gale, without springing a spar, we had done what I never should have believed practicable to four men, taking into consideration the size of the ship and the prodigious force of the wind; and when I looked aloft and considered that only a few hours before, so to speak, the ship was carrying all the sail that could be put upon her, and that three men had stripped her of it and put her under a close-reefed main-topsail fit to encounter a raging hurricane, I could not help thinking that we had a right to feel proud of our endurance and spirit.

There was no difficulty now in holding the wheel, and, had no worse sea than was now running been promised us, the helm might have been lashed and the vessel lain as comfortably as a smack with her foresail over to windward.

The torn sails were making a hideous noise on the yards forward, and as there was no earthly reason why this clamour should be suffered to last, I called to Cornish to get his knife ready and help me to cut the canvas away from the jackstays. We hauled the braces taut to steady the yards, and then went aloft, and in ten minutes severed the fragments of the foresail and topsail, and they blew up into the air like paper, and were carried nearly half a mile before they fell into the sea.

The wind was killing up aloft, and I was heartily glad to get on deck again, not only to escape the wind, but on account of the fore-topmast and top-gallant mast, both of which had been heavily tried, and now rocked heavily as the ship rolled, and threatened to come down with the weight of the yards upon them.

But neither Cornish nor I had strength enough in us to stay the masts more securely; our journey aloft and our sojourn on the yards, and our fight with the wind to maintain our hold, had pretty well done for us; and in Cornish I took notice of that air of lassitude and dull indifference which creeps upon shipwrecked men when worn out with their struggles, and which resembles in its way the stupor which falls upon persons who are perishing of cold.

It was fair, however, since I had had some rest, that I should now take a spell at the wheel, and I therefore told Cornish to go to the cabin lately occupied by Stevens, the ship's carpenter, and turn in, and then crawled aft to the poop and desired the boatswain to go below and rest himself, and order the steward, who had not done one-tenth of the work we had performed, to stand by ready to come on deck if I should call to him.

I was now alone on deck, in the centre, so it seemed when looking around the horizon, of a great storm, which was fast lifting the sea into mountains.

I took a turn round the spokes of the wheel and secured the tiller ropes to steady the helm, and held on, crouching to windward, so that I might get some shelter from the murderous force of the wind by the slanting deck and rail.

I could better now realize our position than when at work, and the criticalness of it struck and awed me like a revelation.

I cast my eyes upon the main-topsail, and inspected it anxiously, as on this sail our lives might depend. If it blew away the only sail remaining would be the fore-topmast staysail. In all probability the ship's head would at once pay off, let me keep the helm jammed down as hard as I pleased; the vessel would then drive before the seas, which, as she had not enough canvas on her to keep her running at any speed, would very soon topple over her stern, sweep the decks fore and aft, and render her unmanageable.

There was likewise the further danger of the fore-topmast going, the whole weight of the staysail being upon it. If this went it would take that sail with it, and the ship would round into the wind's eye and drive away astern.

Had there been more hands on board I should not have found these speculations so alarming. My first job would have been to get some of the cargo out of the hold and pitch it overboard, so as to lighten the ship, for the dead weight in her made her strain horribly. Then with men to help it would have been easy to get the storm trysail on if the topsail blew away, clap preventer backstays on to the foremast and fore-topmast, and rouse them taut with tackles, and send down the royal and top-gallant yards, so as to ease the masts of the immense leverage of these spars.

But what