ing the sail, on hauling out the earing, from the strength of the
wind, and from his anxiety to get it done quickly, he did not haul the
first turn sufficiently taut. After taking the second, and getting a
good pull on it, the first earing rendered suddenly, and, losing his
balance, he fell over the yard. Those who saw him as I did thought he
was gone, but no; as he fell he had kept hold of the earing, and there
he hung, suspended by it about nine feet below the yard-arm and full
sixty from the deck, though, of course, far outside it, that is to say,
over the boiling ocean.

Those on deck looked up, almost paralysed with the terrible spectacle.
His destruction seemed inevitable. His hands were giving way. He
caught the rope in his teeth, and thus he hung suspended, alive and
strong, with the joyous spirits and anticipations of youthful manhood,
and yet with death as it were gaping for him. The man nearest to him on
the yard threw towards him the end of a rope, but it was blown away to
leeward out of his reach. The captain instantly directed that a running
bowline knot should be made round the earing, and thus lowered over his
head; but his voice was drowned by the gale. Cries of horror escaped
from the lips of all who saw him. "A man overboard! a man overboard!"
was shouted out, for every one expected to see him fall into the sea.
William Ellis had never taken his eye off him. I saw him hurry forward.
Poor Harry could hold on no longer. His hands relaxed their gripe of
the rope, his teeth gave way, he fell. As he did so, the ship lurched
heavily to leeward and he came towards the forecastle. Ellis sprang
forward, and as Harry's feet touched the deck, caught him in his arms.
The midshipman's life was preserved, and the only injury he received was
the fracture of one of his ankle-bones. [Note. The whole of this
account is fact, without the slightest alteration.] "He's the only man
who could have done it, though," I afterwards heard some of the seamen
remark. "He prayed that he might do it, and he did it, do ye see."
Even the irreligious often acknowledge the efficacy of the prayers of
Christian men.

William Ellis persevered in his Christian course till the ship was paid
off, when I saw his Mary, who had come to Portsmouth to welcome him.
They married; he obtained a warrant as a gunner, and some years
afterwards, through the influence of Harry Lethbridge, got a good
appointment on shore. The young midship