ig. She was water-logged and abandoned;
but our old man thought there might be something aboard her worth saving,
and so, as the wind was very light, and we couldn't lose much by backing
our fore-topsail yard for a time, he sent a boat to her. The second mate
went in it, and came back with a cargo of tissue-paper, ink, pens, and a
few other loose things he'd picked up in her cabin. The tissue-paper, he
said, would do for the boy--me--to play with. I laughed at him at the
time, for I didn't see what use the tissue-paper would be to me. But I
made a fire-balloon out of it afterwards, and we were all pretty glad
that we had it aboard.

"We were getting down toward the equator when it fell a dead flat calm.
I never saw such a calm before or since, except once. The sea looked
like gray oil, its surface was so smooth and glassy. But out of the
southwest there came a swell that kept growing bigger and bigger and
bigger. There was not a breath of wind stirring, and the whoo, whoo,
whoo of the rush of air in the rigging as the ship rolled sounded like
the whistling of some ghostly fog siren. And how she did roll! Every
spar and timber in her groaned and squeaked as if in mortal pain. Pots
and dishes rattled and banged in the galley, and the whole interior of
the ship was filled with strange unaccountable noises. Up above the sky
was a sort of dull yellow, and the sun looked as if it were behind
smoked glass. The old man looked at the barometer, and decided that we
were in for a gale of wind. So he had the ship made snug under
close-reefed main-topsail, a storm jib, and a rag of spanker. In those
clothes she was ready for anything that might come along. We lay there
rolling in that mad fashion until nearly midnight, and, boy as I was, I
thought I should go insane with the deadly, inexorable, heartless
swaying of the helpless fabric. I don't believe any man except a
hardened old sailor--and not many of them--could keep this side of
lunacy if he were becalmed under an equatorial sun in a swell like that
for twenty-six hours.

"However, it ended all of a sudden about midnight. I was in my bunk, but
I couldn't sleep because of the thumping of the cabin-doors on their
hinges. I heard a man come lumbering down to call the Captain, and I
slipped out of bed and into my clothes. I reached the deck in time to
see a sudden glitter of stars in the northwestern horizon, and to feel a
splash of cold wind on my cheek. The next instant the whol