ht and
main, the officers assisting, every idler putting a hand to a rope. The
topsails were quickly clewed up and furled, the other sails were handed,
but scarcely were the men off the yards, than the high bank of foam
approached the ship. There was a loud rushing, roaring noise.

"Down for your lives!" shouted the captain.

"Down for your lives, my lads," repeated the lieutenants; and though the
helm was put up, and the fore-topmast staysail hoisted, the wind,
striking the tall ship, drove her down before it. Over she heeled.
Down, down she went. It seemed as if she was never to rise again. The
bravest held their breath. Many a cheek turned pale with fear. The
captain waved his hand to the carpenter and his mates.

"Axes!" he shouted. They knew what that meant.

"I knew it would be so," growled old Grim who was standing near Bill,
holding on to the weather bulwarks. "First a calm, to dry the sap out
of a fellow's bones, and then a gale, to blow his teeth down his
throat."

"But there may be a calm again or a fair breeze, and the sun will shine
out bright and clear," answered Bill, who, however, felt more inclined
to think that his last day had come, than he had ever been before. As
he looked out, there was the sea, hitherto so smooth, now leaping and
raging, and covered with seething foam, the spoon-drift flying in vast
sheets of white, from top to top of its broken summits, while huge
watery mountains seemed about to burst over the deck. Still, he knew
very well that sailors had to expect rough seas as well as smooth, and
that many a ship had been in a worse predicament and had escaped. As
the captain cried out "axes," the carpenter and his men sprang aft, with
their shining weapons in their hands. Just then the ship gave a bound,
it seemed like a race-horse darting forward. Up she rose, her head
springing round, and feeling the power of the helm, away she flew before
the hurricane.

"Square away the fore-yards!" shouted the captain (the after-yards had
already been squared). The ship's company saw that the immediate danger
was passed, and once more, fore and aft, all hands breathed freely.

"The sun will soon be shining out!" exclaimed Bill cheerily, within old
Grim's hearing.

"Don't be too sure of that, boy," growled out the latter. "We shall be
broaching to, maybe, before long, and be in a worse case than we were
just now. I have heard of a ship doing that, running under bare poles,
and