say to me; "he can't do
nuffin', I'se like to come an' look after um cabin for young massa, when
I'se in watch below."

Then, the good-natured fellow would scrub away energetically at the
floor, deluged with water, and fix up things straight for me; making the
place far more neat and tidy in five minutes than Harry the mulatto
could have done if he had been all day over the job. He eclipsed the
steward in his own line, while proving himself as good as any seaman in
the ship.

Jake was a handy chap, indeed, all round, for he was of very
considerable assistance to Cuffee in the galley when the stormy weather
interfered with the cooking; so, Captain Miles did not object to his
coming to look after me in this way. He "winked at it," as he said.

During the evening of the day on which the wind shifted round to the
north-west, the sky somewhat cleared and the night was fine and
starlight; but the gale seemed to blow with all the greater vehemence as
the clouds dispersed. It increased to the strength of a hurricane
towards one o'clock in the morning, when, the fore-topsail and mizzen
staysail blowing away, the ship had to content herself with running
under bare poles, careering through the water faster than ever. She had
certainly never realised such speed since she had been launched.

I was awake when Captain Miles came down at this time to consult the
barometer, and I could hear what he said to Jackson, who had accompanied
him below for something or other, the two talking together just outside
my bunk.

"I'm sure I can't make it out at all," the captain said in rather a
hopeless way. "Here's the glass keeping as high as possible, and yet
the gale shows no token of lessening. What can it mean?"

"These cyclones are queer things, sir," responded Jackson. "I was in
two while in a China trader, and sha'n't forget them in a hurry."

"I could understand it," continued Captain Miles as if reasoning with
himself, "keeping on like this if we were in the Gulf of Mexico now, for
it looks like what they call a norther there; but I've never heard of
one of those winds being met in the Atlantic."

"It's something out of the common, sir," observed Jackson. "It's a
cyclone, or hurricane, if I ever was in one, and I don't see as how we
can do better than we are doing, sir."

"Well, we simply can't," said the captain. "We are running before it as
hard as we can with only our bare sticks showing, for the vessel won't
stand