of the yeasting
sea cast a glare upon their uplifted faces, as a night fire in a
populous city lights up the panic-stricken crowd.

In a sudden gale, or when a large quantity of sail is suddenly to be
furled, it is the custom for the First Lieutenant to take the trumpet
from whoever happens then to be officer of the deck. But Mad Jack had
the trumpet that watch; nor did the First Lieutenant now seek to wrest
it from his hands. Every eye was upon him, as if we had chosen him from
among us all, to decide this battle with the elements, by single combat
with the spirit of the Cape; for Mad Jack was the saving genius of the
ship, and so proved himself that night. I owe this right hand, that is
this moment flying over my sheet, and all my present being to Mad Jack.
The ship's bows were now butting, battering, ramming, and thundering
over and upon the head seas, and with a horrible wallowing sound our
whole hull was rolling in the trough of the foam. The gale came athwart
the deck, and every sail seemed bursting with its wild breath.

All the quarter-masters, and several of the forecastle-men, were
swarming round the double-wheel on the quarter-deck. Some jumping up
and down, with their hands upon the spokes; for the whole helm and
galvanised keel were fiercely feverish, with the life imparted to them
by the tempest.

"Hard _up_ the helm!" shouted Captain Claret, bursting from his cabin
like a ghost in his night-dress.

"Damn you!" raged Mad Jack to the quarter-masters; "hard down--hard
_down_, I say, and be damned to you!"

Contrary orders! but Mad Jack's were obeyed. His object was to throw
the ship into the wind, so as the better to admit of close-reefing the
top-sails. But though the halyards were let go, it was impossible to
clew down the yards, owing to the enormous horizontal strain on the
canvas. It now blew a hurricane. The spray flew over the ship in
floods. The gigantic masts seemed about to snap under the world-wide
strain of the three entire top-sails.

"Clew down! clew down!" shouted Mad Jack, husky with excitement, and in
a frenzy, beating his trumpet against one of the shrouds. But, owing to
the slant of the ship, the thing could not be done. It was obvious that
before many minutes something must go--either sails, rigging, or
sticks; perhaps the hull itself, and all hands.

Presently a voice from the top exclaimed that there was a rent in the
main-top-sail. And instantly we heard a re-port like two or t