nder water five."
"What 's that?" "Only five fathom, Sir." "Turn all hands up, bring
the ship to an anchor, boy!" "Are the anchors clear!" "In a moment,
Sir." "All clear!" "What water have you in the chains now!" "Eight,
half nine." "Keep fast the anchors till I call you." "Ay, ay, Sir,
all fast!" "I have no ground with this line." "How many fathoms have
you out? pass along the deep-sea line!" "Ay, ay, Sir." "Come are you
all ready?" "All ready, Sir." "Heave away, watch! watch! bear away,
veer away, no ground Sir, with a hundred fathom." "That 's clever,
come, Madam Phoenix, there is another squeak in you yet--all down but
the watch; secure the anchors again; heave the main-top-sail to the
mast; luff, and bring her to the wind!"

I told you, Madam, you should have a little sea-jargon: if you can
understand half of what is already said, I wonder at it, though it is
nothing to what is to come yet, when the old hurricane begins. As soon
as the ship was a little to rights, and all quiet again, Sir Hyde came
to me in the most friendly manner, the tears almost starting from his
eyes--"Archer, we ought all, to be much obliged to you for the safety
of the ship, and perhaps of ourselves. I am particularly so; nothing
but that instantaneous presence of mind and calmness saved her;
another ship's length and we should have been fast on shore; had you
been the least diffident, or made the least confusion, so as to make
the ship baulk in her stays, she must have been inevitably lost."
"Sir, you are very good, but I have done nothing that I suppose any
body else would not have done, in the same situation. I did not turn
all the hands up, knowing the watch able to work the ship; besides,
had it spread immediately about the ship, that she was almost ashore,
it might have created a confusion that was better avoided." "Well,"
says he, "'t is well indeed."

At daylight we found that the current had set us between the Collarado
rocks and Cape Antonio, and that we could not have got out any other
way than we did; there was a chance, but Providence is the best pilot.
We had sunset that day twenty leagues to the south-east of our
reckoning by the current.

After getting clear of this scrape, we thought ourselves fortunate,
and made sail for Jamaica, but misfortune seemed to follow misfortune.
The next night, my watch upon deck too, we were overtaken by a squall,
like a hurricane while it lasted; for though I saw it coming, and
prepared for