eased, for they spirted up into
the air, flinging their crests aloft one brief moment only to be
decapitated the next by the sweeping scythe-like blast.

Far and wide, the ocean presented a magnificent picture of awful
grandeur and howling desolation.

Above, the sky was of a dull leadenish hue, and there was nothing
anywhere to be seen beyond sky and water save the poor _Josephine_
tearing along through the chaotic maelstrom, labouring and groaning
heavily as she rolled from side to side, dipping her yard-arms from time
to time with each lurch, with the wind shrieking and whistling the most
wonderful harp music through the rigging--nothing to be seen but the
restless, roaring, heaving sea stretching away, like a boiling cauldron
of soap-suds, to where the gloomy heavens met the angry horizon.

At mid-day, more from curiosity than anything else, as we had lost all
track of our dead reckoning, Captain Miles had the log hove, when it was
found that the vessel under her bare poles was going close on fourteen
knots an hour. The force of the wind on her hull and spars was quite
sufficient alone to achieve this speed, for the yards were braced square
and the helm kept as steady amidships as the send of the waves would
allow and the four men in charge of the spokes could manage.

And so, we continued all that day and night, the gale still keeping up
to the same pitch when the fourth morning broke, with never a sign of
cessation, while the sea was, if possible, rougher than before, causing
us to ship the water over our bows continually.

Captain Miles was fairly cornered.

"I tell you what, Marline," he said towards the afternoon, "I don't
think there is now any possible chance of the wind backing again; so, as
she's taking in such a lot over the bows, we must try and get some sail
on her, to rise out of the trough of the sea."

"I don't believe the mast will stand a rag, should we be able to hoist
without its being blown to pieces," replied the first mate despondingly.

He seemed to have lost all heart, unlike the captain and Jackson, who
were both still brave and cheerful, keeping up the spirits of the men.
These latter, I could see, were beginning to lose their courage too,
going about their duties with a sort of dogged stubbornness unlike their
old ready way.

"Well, we'll try it at any rate. But, first, we must see to securing
the masts. Get up a spare hawser and we'll rig a fresh stay round the
head of the fo