on at the weather-rail.

"Will you and Mr. Gage assist at the sheet?"

"Ay, ay, sir! This is heavy work. I hope she'll carry that foresail."

"She must carry it, or carry it away," added Terrill. "We are falling
off badly."

"So we are; it ought to be done," answered the boatswain, as he began to
overhaul the sheets.

It was with the greatest difficulty that any one could stand up on deck.
The billows were momentarily increasing, and the Josephine had fallen
off into the trough of the sea, and rolled helplessly in the surging
waves, so that her fore yard appeared almost to dip in the brine. The
outhaul was run out on the deck, and manned by all the hands that could
get hold of it. The lee sheet was extended in like manner, and the whole
after guard, besides the two adult forward officers, were called to walk
away with it.

"O, dear!" groaned Mr. Hamblin, after the vessel had given an unusually
heavy lee lurch, the jerk of which had nearly knocked the breath out of
his body.

"What's the matter, your honor?" demanded Cleats, who always pitied a
landlubber in a gale.

"Do you think there's any danger, Mr. Cleats?" gasped the professor.

"Danger! Bless your honor's heart! there's never any danger in a good
ship, well manned," replied the veteran tar, as he knocked a kink out of
the sheet. "Look at the captain! When he gets scared, you may."

"It is really terrible!" puffed the learned professor.

"Wouldn't your honor like the boat now?" growled the boatswain, with a
hearty chuckle.

"All ready at the sheets, sir!" screamed Robinson, the fourth
lieutenant, who had charge of the waist at quarters.

"Hold on, Mr. Terrill!" shouted the captain, as the Josephine rolled on
her lee side till the water bubbled up in her scuppers. "Wait till I
give you the word!"

Paul was waiting for a favorable moment, when the blast should lull a
little, to set the reefed foresail.

"You must get out of the way, gentlemen!" said Terrill, roaring out the
words through his trumpet. "The sheet blocks will knock you over!"

Mr. Stoute unmoored himself, and made a dive at the life-line, where the
captain was holding on; but, being rather clumsy in his obesity, he
missed his aim, and was thrown into the scuppers. Mr. Cleats went to his
assistance, and picked him up while he lay upon his back, with his legs
and arms thrown up like a turtle trying to turn over. Mr. Hamblin was
not encouraged by this experiment of his associate.