d fallen further down the scale to 29.46; while, an hour later, it was
down to 28.96, the wind increasing in force almost every minute and the
sea growing in proportion, until the very height of the cyclone was
attained.

The dinghy, which was lashed inboard behind the wheel-house, was blown
bodily away to leeward, the ropes holding it parting as if they had been
pack-thread, heavy squalls, accompanied with heavy rain all the time
beating on us like hail, and bursting over the ship in rapid succession;
but the old barquey bravely stood it, bending to the blast when it came,
and then buoyantly rising the next moment and breasting it like the good
sea-boat she was.

At "six bells" the barometer fell to its lowest point, 28.60, when the
violence of the wind was something fearful, although after this there
was a slight rise in the glass. During the next half-hour, however, the
mizzen-topsail, which Tom Jerrold and I, with Gregory to help us, had
fastened as we thought so firmly to the yard, was blown to ribbons, the
spanker getting adrift shortly afterwards and being torn away from its
lacing to the luff rope, scrap by scrap.

The main trysail, also, although only very little of it was shown when
set, now blew away too, making a great report no doubt; but the
shrieking of the wind was such that we couldn't hear anything else but
its howling through the rigging, the captain's voice close alongside of
me, as I sheltered under the hood of the companion, sounding actually
only like a faint whisper.

The typhoon now shifted from the north-west to the westwards, and the
barometer, rising shortly afterwards to 29.20, jumped up thence another
twenty points in the next hour.

"It's passing off now," said Captain Gillespie, when he could make
himself heard between the squalls, which now came with a longer interval
between them. "Those typhoons always work against the sun, and we've
now experienced the worst of it. There goes our last sail, though, and
we'll have to run for it now."

As he said the words the storm staysail forward was carried away with a
distinct bang, hearing which showed that the wind was not so powerful
quite as just now--when one, really, couldn't have heard a thirty-five
ton gun fired forwards.

On losing this her only scrap of canvas left, the ship half broached to.

Joe Fergusson, however, came to the rescue, no doubt from hearing
something the boatswain had said, for the gale was blowing so furious