pe to see again. They came from the east and the west, from the
north and from the south. They met in the middle and struck each other,
making whirlpools that set the schooner spinnin', they rose up and
fought against each other, they swerved and leaped and jumped. One end
of the schooner was yanked this way and a wave would come along and yank
it to the other, cross currents pitched her nose down, and while her bow
was down, another would slap her in the stern.

"'We was all lashed to the pump wheels. We were bruised and battered and
sore. I never thought we'd get out of it. And, steadily, while lyin'
almost without enough wind to fill our one small sail, we were pitched
and tossed and shaken as a terrier shakes a rat. How the timbers of the
ship ever held together, I don't know. We sprung another leak and while,
before, we had been able to have ten minutes' spell in every hour, now
we not only had to keep pumping steadily, but we had to keep those
handles going at a swingin' pace. Cookie came and gave us a hand at the
pumps and started some of the old chanties. The sun came out and shone
clear above us and all the clouds disappeared. You might have thought it
was a warm, mild day in summer, only for the orange-colored ring all
round the sky and that boiling spot of a sea. We went on pumpin'.

"'It got so quiet in the eye of the hurricane that I felt as if I wanted
to scream, and when Cookie stopped singin' for five minutes, I could see
the glare of madness comin' into the men's eyes. For all I know, it may
have been in my own. Bill was the first to go. He dropped the tiller and
came shriekin' along the deck with his sheath knife, yellin' for the
wind to begin again. The skipper drew a revolver, ready to shoot him if
necessary. But I saw Bill was comin' for me, and before he could reach
me with his knife, I got him one in the right on the point of the jaw.
One of the other men went to the tiller, while Cookie and the skipper
lashed Bill fast to the stump of one of the masts, standin' him upright,
so that when he came to, he wouldn't be able to hurt any one.

"'The other men at the pumps began to talk wildly. We hadn't no water.
Our deck-casks had been carried away, with all our boats and everything
movable, and we couldn't get at the tanks below, because we couldn't
open the hatches. They was battened tight and if you so much as lifted a
corner of the tarpaulin, the whole Gulf of Mexico would tumble in and
there would