as,
when, looking westward--in which direction he has been all along
anxiously on the watch--he sees what sends a shiver through his frame:
three huge rollers, whose height and steepness tell him the _Calypso_ is
about to be tried to the very utmost of her strength. Good sea-boat
though he knows her to be, he knows also that a crisis is near. There
is but time for him to utter a warning shout ere the first roller comes
surging upon them. By a lucky chance the barque, having good
steerage-way, meets and rises over it unharmed. But her way being now
checked, the second roller deadens it completely, and she is thrown off
the wind. The third then taking her right abeam, she careens over so
far that the whole of her lee-bulwark, from cat-head to stern-davit, is
ducked under water.

It is a moment of doubt, with fear appalling--almost despair. Struck by
another sea, she would surely go under; but, luckily, the third is the
last of the series, and she rights herself, rolling back again like an
empty cask. Then, as a steed shaking his mane after a shower, she
throws the briny water off, through hawse-holes and scuppers, till her
decks are clear again.

A cry of relief ascends from the crew, instinctive and simultaneous.
Nor does the loss of her lee-quarter boat, dipped under and torn from
the davits, hinder them from adding a triumphant hurrah, the skipper
himself waving his wet tarpaulin and crying aloud:

"Well done, old _Calypso_! Boys, we may thank our stars for being on
board such a seaworthy craft!"

Alas! both the feeling of triumph and security are short-lived, ending
almost on the instant. Scarce has the joyous hurrah ceased
reverberating along her decks, when a voice is heard calling out, in a
tone very different:

"The ship's sprung a leak!--and a big one too! The water's coming into
her like a sluice!"

There is a rush for the fore hatchway, whence the words of alarm
proceed, the main one being battened down and covered with tarpaulin.
Then a hurried descent to the "'tween-decks" and an anxious peering into
the hold below. True--too true! It is already half full of water,
which seems mounting higher and by inches to the minute! So fancy the
more frightened ones!

"Though bad enuf, 'tain't altogether so bad's that," pronounced Seagriff
the carpenter, after a brief inspection. "There's a hole in the bottom
for sartin'; but mebbe we kin beat it by pumpin'."

Thus encouraged, the captain bounds