from the
yards. And before morning the Mary Rogers was hove down twice again, and
holes were knocked in her bulwarks to ease her decks from the weight of
ocean that pressed her down.

On an average of once a week Captain Dan Cullen caught glimpses of the
sun. Once, for ten minutes, the sun shone at midday, and ten minutes
afterward a new gale was piping up, both watches were shortening sail,
and all was buried in the obscurity of a driving snow-squall. For
a fortnight, once, Captain Dan Cullen was without a meridian or a
chronometer sight. Rarely did he know his position within half of a
degree, except when in sight of land; for sun and stars remained hidden
behind the sky, and it was so gloomy that even at the best the horizons
were poor for accurate observations. A gray gloom shrouded the world.
The clouds were gray; the great driving seas were leaden gray; the
smoking crests were a gray churning; even the occasional albatrosses
were gray, while the snow-flurries were not white, but gray, under the
sombre pall of the heavens.

Life on board the Mary Rogers was gray--gray and gloomy. The faces
of the sailors were blue-gray; they were afflicted with sea-cuts and
sea-boils, and suffered exquisitely. They were shadows of men. For seven
weeks, in the forecastle or on deck, they had not known what it was to
be dry. They had forgotten what it was to sleep out a watch, and all
watches it was, "All hands on deck!" They caught snatches of agonized
sleep, and they slept in their oilskins ready for the everlasting call.
So weak and worn were they that it took both watches to do the work of
one. That was why both watches were on deck so much of the time. And no
shadow of a man could shirk duty. Nothing less than a broken leg could
enable a man to knock off work; and there were two such, who had been
mauled and pulped by the seas that broke aboard.

One other man who was the shadow of a man was George Dorety. He was the
only passenger on board, a friend of the firm, and he had elected to
make the voyage for his health. But seven weeks of Cape Horn had not
bettered his health. He gasped and panted in his bunk through the long,
heaving nights; and when on deck he was so bundled up for warmth that he
resembled a peripatetic old-clothes shop. At midday, eating at the cabin
table in a gloom so deep that the swinging sea-lamps burned always, he
looked as blue-gray as the sickest, saddest man for'ard. Nor did gazing
across the table at