the windlass to the
chain-locker, swirling round the pumps and the foot of the mainmast, and
gurgling and sobbing in the lee scuppers; the weather bulwarks were
streaming with water; even the topsails were dark with wet: miniature
showers were blowing away to leeward off the top of the galley and
forward deck-house; and the few dry spots that were to be found here and
there about the decks in sheltered places were white with encrusted
salt. It was still blowing heavily; the ship was plunging furiously,
and rolling so wildly that it was impossible to maintain one's footing
without clinging to something; the continuous raving of the wind among
the maze of spars and rigging, especially when the ship rolled to
windward, was most depressing to listen to; and the appalling
proportions of the vast liquid mountain ranges that, with dreary,
persistent, remorseless monotony, came sweeping down upon us from the
northward and westward, piling their hissing crests high around us,
completed a picture which, for dreary sublimity, I had never seen
equalled.

I was tired, and wet, and cold; for, notwithstanding our arrangement of
the watches, I had been on deck, off and on, the whole night. I was not
sorry, therefore, when Forbes came on deck to relieve me at eight
o'clock, thus affording me an opportunity to shift into dry clothes
before sitting down to breakfast. We were rather a small company that
morning, Sir Edgar and Miss Merrivale being the only members of the
saloon party who felt equal to the putting in of an appearance; and
after breakfast I was obliged--rather unwillingly, I confess--to go on
deck again to secure an observation of the sun, which observation, when
worked out, showed that we were nearly thirty miles to the eastward of
our proper position. This ascertained, I retired to my cabin, and,
flinging myself upon the bunk, "all standing," instantly sank into a
dreamless, refreshing sleep.

It appeared to me that I had not been in my berth more than five minutes
when, about a quarter of an hour before noon, Forbes called me in order
that we might together take the meridian altitude of the sun; and I was
no sooner on my feet than it became apparent that the ship's motion was
by no means so violent as it had been when I lay down; which was
sufficiently accounted for by the information imparted to me by the mate
that the gale had broken, and that in another hour or two the weather
would probably have moderated suffic