ew watch was given no more time than to wake
up and shake themselves. They were soon on the yards, taking the third
and fourth-last--reefs in the fore and main topsails, furling the
mizzen, and seeing that the lower sails and topgallant-sails were
securely rolled up against the burst that was to be expected. Before
1.30 A.M. all things were as ready as care could make them, and not
too soon. The moon was sinking, or had sunk; the sky darkened
steadily, though not beyond that natural to a starless night. In the
southwest faint glimmerings of lightning gave warning of what might be
looked for; but we had used light well while we had it, and could now
bear what was to come. At 2 P.M. it came with a roar and a rush,
"butt-end foremost," as the saying is, preceded by a few huge drops of
scurrying rain.

"When the rain before the wind,
Topsail sheets and halyards mind;"

but that was for other conditions than ours.

A pampero at its ordinary level is no joke; but this was the charge of
a wild elephant, which would exhaust itself soon, but for the nonce
was terrific. Pitch darkness settled down upon the ship. Except in the
frequent flashes of lightning, literally blue, I could not see the
forecastle boatswain's mate of the watch, who stood close by my elbow,
ready pipe in hand. The rain came down in buckets, and in the midst of
all the wind suddenly shifted, taking the sails flat aback. The
shrillness of the boatswain's pipes is then their great merit. They
pierce through the roar of the tempest, by sheer difference of pitch,
an effect one sometimes hears in an opera; and the officer of the
deck, our second lieutenant, who bore the name of Andrew Jackson, and
was said to have received his appointment from him--which shows how
far back he went--had a voice of somewhat the same quality. I had
often heard it assert itself, winding in and out through the uproar of
an ordinary gale, but on this occasion it went clean away--whistled
down the wind. "I always think bad of it," said Boatswain Chucks,
"when the elements won't allow my whistle to be heard; and I consider
it hardly fair play." Such advantage the elements took of us on this
occasion, but the captain came to the rescue. He had the throat of a
bull of Bashan, which went the elements one better on their own hand.
Under his stentorian shouts the weather head-braces were led along
(probably already had been, as part of the preparation, but that was
quarter-deck work,