down stern
foremost.

Now, however, instead of any accident happening, the good ship, although
reeling with the blow like a drunken man, paid off from the wind
handsomely--running on for some time before the gale and tearing through
the water with everything flying, "as if old Nick were after her," the
men said!

All hands being then called again, the topsails and trysails were close-
reefed, the courses furled, and the foretopmast-staysail set; when, the
barque was brought round nearly to her course again, with the weather-
braces hauled in a bit to ease her.

This was the first rough weather Fritz experienced, and it cannot be
said to have increased his admiration for a sea life, all he saw of
which only tended to make him wonder more and more every day what could
induce his brother Eric to have such a passionate inclination towards
it! It was a strange fancy, he thought, as he watched the disturbed
state of the wild ocean, lashed into frenzy by the force of the gale,
which seemed to wax more lusty each hour; for, the ship appeared to be,
now, careering like a mad thing through some deep watery valley, between
lofty mountainous peaks of spray, and, the next moment, seeming to be on
the toppling edge of a fathomless abyss, into which she looked about to
plunge headlong to destruction as she rose above the plane of tempest-
tossed water, borne aloft on the rolling crest of one of the huge waves
that were racing by each other as if in sport--the broken, billowy
element boiling and seething as far as the eye could reach, in eddies of
creamy foam and ridges of turbid green, with the clouds above of a
leaden tinge that deepened, as they approached the horizon, to a dark
slatish hue, becoming blue-black in the extreme distance.

"That Shakespeare was a fine fellow!" Fritz said to Captain Brown, who
stood close by the binnacle, keeping an eye to the two men who were now
at the wheel steering; for, the ship required careful handling in the
heavy sea that was running to prevent her from broaching to, and it
needed very prompt action frequently to jam down the helm in time, so as
to let her fall off her course before some threatening mountain of water
that bore down on her bows.

"Ha-ow?" ejaculated the skipper inquiringly, turning to the other, who
was looking over the taffrail surveying the scene around and had spoken
musingly--uttering his thoughts aloud.

"I mean Shakespeare, the great dramatist," replied Fritz, wh