rl the top-gallant sails.

Three or four of us ran up the rigging like monkeys, and in a few
minutes the sails were lashed to the yards.

The wind now began to blow steadily from the nor'-west; but not so hard
as to stop our tryworks for more than an hour. After that it blew
stiff enough to raise a heavy sea, and we were compelled to slack the
fires. This was all the harm it did to us, however, for although the
breeze was stiffish, it was nothing like a gale.

As the captain and the first mate walked the quarter-deck together, I
heard the former say to the latter, "I think we had as well take in a
reef in the topsails. All hereabouts the fishing-ground is good, we
don't need to carry on."

The order was given to reduce sail, and the men lay out on the topsail
yards. I noticed that my friend Fred Borders was the first man to
spring up the shrouds and lay out on the main-topsail yard. It was so
dark that I could scarcely see the masts. While I was gazing up, I
thought I observed a dark object drop from the yard; at the same moment
there was a loud shriek, followed by a plunge in the sea. This was
succeeded by the sudden cry, "man overboard!" and instantly the whole
ship was in an uproar.

No one who has not heard that cry can understand the dreadful feelings
that are raised in the human breast by it. My heart at first seemed to
leap into my mouth and almost choke me. Then a terrible fear, which I
cannot describe, shot through me, when I thought it might be my comrade
Fred Borders. But these thoughts and feelings passed like
lightning--in a far shorter time than it takes to write them down. The
shriek was still ringing in my ears when the captain roared--

"Down your helm! stand by to lower away the boats."

At the same moment he seized a light hen-coop and tossed it overboard,
and the mate did the same with an oar in the twinkling of an eye.
Almost without knowing what I did, or why I did it, I seized a great
mass of oakum and rubbish that lay on the deck saturated with oil, I
thrust it into the embers of the fire in the try-works, and hurled it
blazing into the sea.

[Illustration: "HURLED IT BLAZING INTO THE SEA"]

The ship's head was thrown into the wind, and we were brought to as
quickly as possible. A gleam of hope arose within me on observing that
the mass I had thrown overboard continued still to burn; but when I saw
how quickly it went astern, notwithstanding our vigorous efforts to
stop the