er came back--from a great black-
bearded savage-looking fellow--couched in the words, as nearly as he
could make them out for the howling of the wind and the rush of the sea:

"You mind your own business! Nobody on board this ship wants your
advice."

"But I am giving it you for your own safety's sake, and that of the
ship," persisted Mildmay.

The answer was unintelligible, but, as it was accompanied by an
impatient wave of the hand and a turning of the speaker's back upon him,
Mildmay rightly concluded that the individual was one of those
obstinate, pig-headed people, who, having once made a mistake, will
persist in it at all hazards rather than take advice, and so admit the
possibility of their having done wrong; he accordingly turned away
somewhat disgusted, and made his way back to the shelter of the pilot-
house.

The lieutenant was in the act of describing to his companions the
unsatisfactory nature of the foregoing brief colloquy, when
suddenly--_instantaneously_--there occurred an awful pause in the fury
of the hurricane; the wind lulled at once to a dead calm; the air
cleared; the sea, no longer thrashed down by the gale, reared itself
aloft as though it would scale the very heavens; and the canvas of the
barque flapped with a single loud thunderous report as she rolled
heavily to windward.

"Now, look out!" gasped Mildmay. And, even as the words escaped his
lips, down came the hurricane again in a sudden mad burst of relentless
fury; but _now_ the wind blew from the _northward_, the point of the
compass exactly opposite that from which it had been blowing a minute
before.

The _Flying Fish_, having neither sails nor spars exposed to the blast,
received this second stroke of the gale with impunity; but with the
devoted barque it was, alas, very different. She was struck flat aback
and borne irresistibly over on her beam-ends, gathering stern-way at the
same time. The crew, at last fully alive to the extreme peril of their
situation, scrambled along the deck and made their way to the braces in
a futile attempt to haul round the yards, the helmsman at the same time
jamming the wheel hard down that the ship might have a chance to pay
off. The yards, however, were jammed fast against the weather rigging,
and could not be moved; neither would the ship's head pay off;
meanwhile, her stern-way was rapidly increasing, the sea already foaming
up level with her taffrail; and presently it curled in over her