;
while the foretop-mast stay-sail was blown clean away to leeward,
floating in the air like a white kite against the dark background of the
sky. Finally, the foretop-gallant mast was carried by the board to
complete the ruin, leaving the ship rolling like a wreck upon the
waters, though, happily, no lives as yet were lost.

CHAPTER FOUR.

SAVED!

While all this turmoil and confusion was going on above on deck--with
the ship labouring and straining through the heavy seas that raced after
her as she ran before the wind, one every now and then outstripping its
fellows and breaking over her quarter or stern-rail with a force that
made her quiver from end to end, and "stagger like a drunken man," as
the Psalmist has so aptly described it, the thud of the heavy waves
playing a sort of deep bass accompaniment to the shrieking treble of the
wind as it whistled and wailed through the shrouds and cordage, and the
ragged remnants of the torn topsail flapping against the yard, with the
sound of a stock-driver's whip, in a series of short, sharp reports--
those below in the cuddy were far from having a pleasant time of it;
for, they were almost in the dark, the captain having caused the
companion-hatch to be battened down, and a heavy tarpaulin thrown across
the skylight to prevent the tons of water that came over the poop at
intervals from flooding the saloon as the waves swept forward in a
cascade of foam.

This was just after Mr Zachariah Lathrope, the American passenger, had
so well illustrated Virgil's line, _facilus descensus averni_, in coming
down the stairway by the run, on the top of a "comber;" and, although
the steward had lit one of the swinging lamps over the cuddy table, it
only served, with its feeble flickering light, to "make the darkness
visible" and render the scene more sombre.

The _Nancy Bell was_ a wooden ship, clipper built and designed for the
passenger trade; but, being only of some nine hundred tons or so
burthen, she had not that wealth of accommodation below that some of the
first-class liners running to Australia and New Zealand possess,
especially in these days of high-pressure steamers and auxiliary screws,
which make the passage in half the time that the old-fashioned sailing
vessels used to occupy.

She was, however, as well fitted up as her size permitted; and, as her
list of passengers was by no means filled, there was plenty of space for
those who now had possession of the main sal