climb somehow up the steep slope of each advancing
wave, though not to carry her fairly over its crest, every one of which
broke aboard her--usually well forward, as luck would have it; with the
result that while I had been sleeping below the whole of the lee
bulwarks and the forward half of them on the weather side had been swept
away, leaving her deck open to the sea, which had swept away every
movable thing, leaving nothing but the mast and the splintered ends of
the stanchions standing.

This constant sweeping of the deck by green seas rendered the task of
moving about extremely dangerous, for the rush of water over the fore
part of the deck was quite heavy enough to lift a man off his feet and
carry him overboard. But I wanted to sound the well; so, securing the
pump-rod, which, for convenience, was hung in beckets in the companion,
I watched my opportunity, and, rushing forward, succeeded in dropping
the rod down the well and getting a firm grip upon the fall of the main
halliard before the next sea broke aboard. Then, as the water poured
off the deck, I quickly drew the rod out of the well and dashed aft with
it to the shelter of the companion in time to escape the next sea. An
inspection of the rod then sufficed to realise my worst fears; the
little craft had upwards of three feet of water in her hold! Evidently
she was leaking badly, and the sooner I could devise some means of
relieving her of the weight of water in her the better it would be for
me. Had I made this discovery half a dozen hours earlier I should
probably have regarded it with perfect indifference; but those five
hours of death--like sleep had so greatly refreshed me that I now felt a
new man. My state of indifference had passed away with the intensity of
my fatigue, and the instinct of self-preservation was once more
asserting itself.

My first idea was to rig the pump; but this was instantly discarded, for
I had but to stand in the companion-way for a couple of minutes, and
watch the heavy rush of water athwart the deck, to be convinced of the
absolute impossibility of maintaining my position at the pump; for, even
if lashed there, my utmost efforts would barely suffice to prevent
myself from being swept overboard, while to work the pump would be quite
out of the question. Then I remembered that the lazarette hatch was
situated immediately at the foot of the companion ladder; and I thought
that, by raising the cover, I might get a sort