was never no favour nor affection there. Well, as I said
afore, we were cruising off the coast of Ireland, when, one day, it came
on to blow great guns from the westward. For three blessed days, there
was the little Fire-eater tossing and tumbling, and kicking up her
starn, and going through as many manoeuvres as a dancing-master, till
at last we were driven so far west that we made the coast of Argyle;
then 'bout ship we went, and stood away again to the eastward. Well, we
carried on for a matter of four-and-twenty hours, with a little more
northing in the wind, when we made land again, and hauled up two or
three points to clear it. The weather was so thick ye might a'most have
cut it with a knife, and there wasn't such a thing as a dirty face on
board, the sea made a clean wash of everything, and it blowed--my eyes,
how it did blow! Mayhap, you call this a gale, but you wouldn't have
heard it beside that. It was bad enough to be on deck, but ten times
worse below; a devil of a sea smashed in some of the ports, and the
leeside of the main-deck was three feet deep in water. And then, while
we were hard at work, stuffing up the holes where the water was pouring
in, and pumping, there was an awful stramash on deck; for there was the
land again, close aboard of us ahead. 'Wear ship!' was now the cry, and
away went the little hooker again on the other tack, and bravely did she
behave--a better sea-boat never swam; for, battered and knocked about as
she was, she showed true pluck; no sooner was she knocked over by a sea,
than she rose again like a duck, though she was forced to shake her
feathers now and then. Well, at eight-bells in the first watch
(midnight), we thought it was all up with us again, for there was the
surf breaking on the rocks little more than half-a-mile on the
lee-bow--and touch-and-go it was; but our tight little barky--though she
was anything but tight by that time--though she lay over till she was
half buried alive, looked boldly up in the wind, and shot past like a
sea-bird. If there hadn't been such a devil of a noise, you might have
heard a pin drop just then. There was not a man on deck who did not hold
his breath, and gasp, when the danger was past, like one that's just
escaped drowning.

"'By the powers!' says I to Bill Jones, 'that was a close shave.'

"'You may say that,' says he.

"Just as he was a-speaking, the moon shone out, and there, not six
hundred yards to leeward, were breakers again