be done," said Captain Billings,
with a more anxious look on his face than I had ever noticed there
before. "I only hope we'll manage it successfully; for, if we once get
broadside on in the trough of this sea, she'll never rise out of it,
with the heavy cargo she carries, and so it will be a case of Davy
Jones' locker for the lot of us!"

CHAPTER FIFTEEN.

"A LITTLE UNPLEASANTNESS."

"Say, Cap', we'll have to strip her first," suggested Jorrocks, when it
was thus decided to carry out the contemplated measure for the relief of
the ship--"if we don't do that, we'll have every stick taken out of her
as soon as we try to wear her!"

"Oh, aye, boatswain, I haven't forgotten that, you may be sure," said
the skipper; and the hands were then once more sent aloft to furl the
main-topsail, while the mizzen trysail was hauled down and the braces
manned, so as to help the vessel round with the yards the moment the
helm was put up.

It was a ticklish job, though. The utmost care was necessary in order
that the manoeuvre might be successfully accomplished.

Should one of the heavy rollers strike her after she had once yielded to
the influence of the rudder and while coming round with the wind, before
she had fully paid off--thus presenting her stern to the attack of her
stubborn assailants even as she now faced them, like a stag at bay or a
cat fronting a bull-dog--why, the gale would undoubtedly catch her
broadside on. In such a case, the _Esmeralda_ would be exposed at her
weakest point to the full force of the wind and sea, in the same way as
the deer or cat turning tail to its pursuer--with what result we on
board could readily anticipate, even without the skipper's warning
words!

As Jorrocks expressed it, in the event of such a catastrophe happening,
"It was all Lombard Street to a China orange we'd lose the number of our
mess and sarve as food for fishes!"

Everything, therefore, depended on our seizing the right moment for
putting the helm up and bringing her head round, the critical period
being that between the onslaught of one of the rollers and the advent of
the next; when, if the vessel answered her helm smartly, rising out of
the trough of the sea ere the following wave had time to reach her, she
would be away scudding in front of the gale safely, before many minutes
would be past and the present peril might then be a thing to look back
upon with feelings of thankfulness and satisfaction.

Captain B