ft, flooding the whole deck almost up to the gunwhales
taking everything movable overboard, the boats being lifted off the
chocks amidships even and swept away, and the cook's galley in the
forward part of the deckhouse got badly damaged.

This was in the height of the storm, just before daybreak, about two
bells in the morning watch, or five o'clock AM.

Our poor old barquey then rolled so much that the skipper thought the
wire hawser attached to the spars had parted and that we were at the
very mercy of the tempest. So certain, indeed, was he, that he yelled
out for all hands to make sail, with the idea of trying one last
desperate venture and beard the winds with our puny canvas.

Fortunately, however, there was no need for us to essay this futile
expedient, breaking the force of the billows as they reared up in their
colossal grandeur to annihilate us and keeping us steadily facing their
attack; and presently, shortly after six bells, when we really
experienced pretty nearly the worst of it, there was a muttered growl of
thunder, accompanied by a lightning flash that illuminated the whole of
the heavens from pole to pole, and then rain came down in a deluge, the
wind dropping, as suddenly, with a wild, weird shrill shriek of
disappointed rage that wailed and whistled through the rigging, and then
quietly died away.

Of course the sea did not quiet down all at once, old Neptune not being
easily pacified after being stirred up to so great an extent, and the
waves ran high most of the day, while the sky was overcast and the ocean
of a dull leaden colour; but towards evening it cleared up and, the
water being a bit calmer, the captain thought it a fitting time to bury
poor Jackson.

All the hands were mustered on deck, the engineers and stokers stopping
their busy repairing work below, which they had kept at night and day
without intermission ever since our breakdown, and coming up with the
rest of the crew to pay the last tribute of respect to their departed
comrade, even Mr Stokes, though he was still in a very weak state of
health and had his head and broken arm bandaged up, insisting on being
present, Garry O'Neil and Stoddart supporting him between them for the
purpose.

Then the body of the unfortunate fireman, enclosed in a hammock covered
by the ship's ensign and having a pig of ballast tied to the feet to
ensure its submersion, was brought up from the cabin where he had died,
and placed on a plank by th