metimes it blows hard enought to blew the devil's horns off, though
the gales never last very long. We were under close reefed fore- and
main-top sails, storm stay-sail and trysail, when there was a fresh hand
at the bellows, and the captain desired the officers of the watch, just
before dinner to take in the fore-top sail. Not to disturb the watch
below, the main-top men were ordered up forward to help the fore-top men
of the watch; and I was of course aloft, ready to lie out on the lee
yard-arm--when Wiggins, who had the watch below, came up in the top, not
liking that Herbert should be at work in such weather without he being
there too.

"`Tom,' says to me, `I'll take the yard-arm.'

"`Very well,' say I, `with all my heart; then I'll look to the bunt.'

"Just at that time there came on a squall with rain, which almost
blinded us; the sail was taken in very neatly, the clew-lines,
chock-a-block, bunt-lines and leech-lines well up, reef-tackles
overhauled, rolling-tackles taut, and all as it should be. The men lied
out on the yard, the squall wore worse and worse, but they were handing
in the leech of the sail, when snap went one bunt-line, then the other;
the sail flapped and flagged, till away went the leech-lines, and the
men clung to the yards for their lives; for the sail mastered them, and
they could do nothing. At last it split like thunder, buffeting the men
on the yard-arms till they were almost senseless, until to windward it
wore away into long coach whips, and the whole of the canvas left was at
the lee yard-arm. The men laid in at last with great difficulty, quite
worn out by fatigue and clinging for their existence; all but Wiggins,
who was barred by the sail to leeward from making his footing good on
the horse, and there he was, poor fellow, completely in irons, and so
beaten by the canvas that he could hardly be said to be sensible. It
takes a long while to tell all this, but it wasn't the work of a minute.
At last he made an attempt to get up by the lift, but was struck down,
and would have been hurled overboard if it hadn't been that his leg fell
over the horse, and there he was, head downwards, hanging over a raging
sea, ready to swallow him up as soon as he dropt into it. As every one
expected he would be beat off before any assistance could be given, you
may guess that it was an awful moment to those below who were looking up
at him, watching for his fall and the roll of the ship, to see if