cracking on at all hazards." You shall know the sequel presently, but meanwhile you may ask, what effect had all this experience of peril on the people on board? I can only say that it seemed to sober everyone. Rowdiness and drunkenness disappeared, but the impression made by those awful nights had yet to be deepened.
We rounded the Horn, and were off the West Indies. There, in the tropics, making a fair pace in quiet water, one afternoon the wind fell suddenly; a dead calm, quite uncanny in its stillness; the water oily and slate coloured; the horizon aglow with a yellow red light; and a something brooding in the air that meant mischief. But here, in these Latitudes, the Captain was in his element. He had weathered many a cyclone, and knew exactly what to do. It was just three o'clock, our dinner hour, when he startled us all by a sudden order for all hands on deck, to take in every rag of canvas at once; even stewards and handy passengers were impressed to tail on to ropes and haul. The crew, as active as cats aloft, had just gathered in all sail, and were on the bare spars, when the wind literally leapt down upon the vessel, and drove us furiously through the water, which seemed flattened out by its force. It was so fierce a gale that no one dared stand up against it, except under shelter. Crouching behind a meat safe, I asked the first mate if he had ever known it blow as hard before, "I don't know that I have. 'I'm inclined to agree with the American Skipper: I guess if this goes on much longer she'll take to the air and fly.'" Presently we passed a large barque, which had been caught by the cyclone, all standing; all her masts broken short off at the lower tops; sails and rigging hanging in ribbons over
