r
like angry wolves about to leap upon their prey. At first I thought I
was alone in this scene of mad turmoil; but presently, when the light
grew stronger, as the felucca hung poised for an instant upon the crest
of a foaming comber, that boiled in over both rails amidships and
flooded the deck knee-deep, I caught a momentary glimpse of a large
craft, some nine miles away on the larboard bow, running, like myself,
before the gale. She was hull down, of course, and very probably in the
hollow of a sea when first I caught sight of her; for I saw only the
heads of her lower masts, with the three topmasts rising above them, the
topgallant masts either struck or carried away. She was running under a
close-reefed maintopsail and goose-winged foresail, and I took her to be
a frigate, though whether one of our own or an enemy, she was too far
off for me to be enabled to judge; but, of whatever nationality she may
have been, she was undoubtedly a fast vessel, for she soon ran out of
sight, although I estimated the speed of the felucca to be quite nine
knots.

About an hour later I became sensible of a distinct abatement in the
fury of the hurricane, which, in the course of another hour, had still
further moderated, until it had become no more than an ordinary heavy
gale. Yet so callous had I now become that the change afforded me
scarcely any satisfaction; I had grown so utterly indifferent that I had
long ceased to care what happened. But I was worn out with fatigue; my
limbs ached as though I had been severely beaten, my hands were
blistered and raw with the chafe of the tiller, and my eyes were
smarting for want of sleep. Rest I felt that I _must_ have, and that
soon, come what might of it. So, as the gale had moderated somewhat, I
determined to heave-to. I believed the felucca would now bear the
weight of her small, close-reefed lug even when brought to the wind, and
if she did not--well, it did not matter. _Nothing_ mattered just then,
except that I _must_ have rest. So, the sail being set on the starboard
side of the mast, I watched my opportunity, and, availing myself of a
"smooth," brought the felucca to on the starboard tack, with no worse
mishap than the shipping of a sea over the weather bow--as she came up
with her head pointing to windward--that swept away the whole of the
port bulwarks, from abreast the windlass to the wake of the companion.
As she came to, the little craft laid over until the water was