and regretted my indiscretion in entering the forecastle after the
politic resolutions I had formed. However, Captain Coxon's ferocity
was nothing new to me; truly I believed he was not quite right in his
mind, and expected, as in former cases, that he would come round a bit
by-and-by when his insane temper had passed. Still his insinuations
were highly dangerous, not to speak of their offensiveness. It was no
joke to be charged, even by a madman, with striving to arouse the crew
to mutiny. Nevertheless I tried to console myself as best I could by
reflecting that he could not prove his charges; that I need only to
endure his insolence for a few weeks, and that there was always a law
to vindicate me and punish him, should his evil temper betray him into
any acts of cruelty against me.

The gale, at times the severest that I was ever in, lasted three days;
during which the ship drove something like eighty miles to the
northwest. The sea on the afternoon of the third day was appalling:
had the ship attempted to run, she would have been pooped and smothered
in a minute; but lying close, she rode fairly well, though there were
moments when I held my breath as she sunk in a hollow like a coal-mine,
filled with the astounding noise of boiling water,--really believing
that the immense waves which came hurtling towards us with solid,
sharp, transparent ridges, out of which the wind tore lumps of water
and flung them through the rigging of the ship, must overwhelm the
vessel before she could rise to it.

The fury of the tempest and the violence of the sea, which the boldest
could not contemplate without feeling that the ship was every moment in
more or less peril, kept the crew subdued; and they eat as best they
could the provisions, without complaint. However, it needed nothing
less than a storm to keep them quiet: for on the second day a sea
extinguished the galley fire, and until the gale abated no cooking
could be done; so that the men had to put up with cold water and
biscuit. Hence all hands were thrown upon the ship's bread for two
days; and the badness of it, therefore, was made even more apparent
than heretofore, when its wormy moldiness was in some degree qualified
by the nauseousness of bad salt pork and beef and the sickly flavor of
damaged tea.

As I had anticipated, the captain came round a little a few hours after
his insulting attack upon me. I think his temper frightened him when
it had reference to me