e
bulwarks, which broke his leg and almost pitched him over the side. Had
this occurred it would have been utterly impossible to have saved him.

Mr Macdougall and I immediately rushed aft; and, the two of us grasping
the spokes, managed to turn the wheel round with our united strength;
but it was too late to get the ship to pay off, for, a fresh blast of
wind striking her full butt, she was taken aback, the foremast coming
down with a crash across the deck, carrying with it the bowsprit and
maintopmast, the mizzen-topmast following suit a minute afterwards.

This was bad enough in all conscience, without our having the
consciousness that besides this loss of all our spars, making the vessel
a hopeless log rolling at the mercy of the winds and waves, our cargo of
coals was on fire in the hold, forming a raging volcano beneath our
feet!

Fortune was cruel. Mishap had followed on mishap. The powers of evil
were piling Ossa on Pelion!

The skipper, however, was not daunted yet.

All hands had rushed aft, without being specially called, roused by the
crash of the falling spars, so he immediately set them to work with the
hatchets fastened round the mainmast bitts, cutting away at the
wreckage; and then, as the clouds cleared away and a bit of blue sky
showed itself aloft, Captain Billings expressed himself hopeful of
getting out of the meshes of that network of danger in every direction
with which we seemed surrounded.

"Look alive, men, and don't despair," said he to the crew, encouraging
them; for they were almost panic-stricken at first, and it was all that
Jorrocks and I could do to get them to ply their tomahawks forwards and
cut away the rigging, which still held the foremast with all its top-
hamper attached to the ship, thumping at her sides as the lumber floated
alongside, trying to crunch our timbers in. "Look alive, men, and put
your heart into it; all hope hasn't left us yet! The gale has nearly
blown itself out, as you can see for yourselves by that little bit of
blue sky there overhead, bigger than a Dutchman's pair of breeches; so,
as soon as the sea goes down a little, we'll hoist out the boats, so as
to have them handy in case we have to abandon the ship, should the fire
in the hold get too strong for us, although I don't fear that yet, my
hearties, for the water may drown it out soon, you know. But work away
cheerily, my lads, and clear away all that dunnage, so that we can set a
little sail p