was in a very ticklish state, the
carpenter adding that the spar ought to be fished as soon as possible or
it might part company.

It had to remain as it was, however, for the present, the commander not
wishing to peril the men's lives needlessly by sending them aloft unless
it was absolutely necessary for the safety of the ship; for it was not
any easy thing to shift such a big spar as the topsail yard in a gale of
wind. "If it chooses to go by the board before it could be seen to,"
said he, "why, well and good, go it must, that's all!"

So Commander Nesbitt evidently thought, I was sure, from the way in
which he shrugged his shoulders and pointed in dumb show aloft and then
to the sea, when the carpenter tried to press the claims of the topsail
yard on his notice.

When the hands were sent down and the watch set at Eight Bells, to my
inexperienced eyes the hurricane appeared to be at its height; the
howling of the wind and angry roar of the clashing waves being
absolutely awful to listen to, drowning as they did every other sound on
board the ship on deck.

Nor was it any the better below, the groaning of the timbers there, as
of a lost soul crying out in its last agony, with the rattling of
crockery and other mess gear, adding to the tumult without, made a
perfect pandemonium of the gunroom.

A fellow could not hear what another said, though it were shouted in his
ear as loudly as the speaker could bawl; albeit some of my messmates
certainly had powerful lungs of their own--lungs which they were not
chary of testing when occasion offered!

I turned in early; but, not being able to sleep for the racket that was
going on, I returned to the deck, remaining there in the most sheltered
corner I could find with Tom Mills, the two of us watching with
spellbound attention until close on midnight the wonderful struggle
between the spirits of the air and the demons of the deep--the
pale-faced moon shining out occasionally from the dark vault of the
heavens overhead, lighting up the stormy sea that served as the
battle-ground of the storm fiends with her sickly gleams and making it
seem like a field of snow, its vast expanse being covered with yeasty
foam as far as the eye could reach.

The gale lasted all that night and the following day; when, late in the
evening, the weather commenced to moderate, the wind calming down
finally towards the close of the middle watch next morning.

It had then been blowing for thirty