accomplished, and then the new piece of canvas was sent up into the top
by the halliards, where, after being bent and close-reefed, it was
sheeted home and the yard hoisted up again, spreading the sail.

The mizzen staysail followed suit; and then, seeing that the ship bore
the pressure pretty well, Captain Miles ordered the fore-topmast
staysail to be hoisted. This brought the _Josephine_ more up to the
wind, the vessel now sailing with it about a couple of points abaft the
beam.

She heeled over tremendously, burying all the lee bulwarks under water,
with the sea rushing along her channels like a mill-race; but, she held
to it bravely, and we all congratulated ourselves on having weathered
the storm and carried out Captain Miles's boast of making the gale serve
his purpose, thus turning a foul wind into a fair one.

Towards mid-day, the captain took an observation, which amply
corroborated his lunars of the previous evening, we being found to be in
32 degrees North latitude and 40 degrees West longitude, the slight
difference between this and his former reckoning being due to the
distance we had run during the night.

The wind still held up, however, and although we were carrying more
canvas than we really ought to have had on the ship in such a gale,
Captain Miles was just thinking of setting the spanker and bending a new
fore-topsail, when, as if it had been all at once shut off from its
source, the strong north-western wind in a moment ceased to blow.

At this time there was not a single cloud on the horizon anywhere, the
sky being absolutely clear and beautifully blue; but I noticed something
like a white wall of water on our port bow advancing towards the
_Josephine_.

The sight resembled an enormous wave raised up to twenty times the
height of those in our more immediate vicinity.

"Look, Mr Marline!" I cried. "What is that there to the left?"

He glanced where I pointed, and so did Jackson, the latter singing out
the moment he caught sight of the wave to the two men at the wheel, who
were Davis and a German sailor, "Down with the helm--sharp!"

"Hullo! what's the matter?" exclaimed Captain Miles, hearing the order
and raising himself up from the cabin skylight where he had been bending
over his log-book, in which he had been jotting down an entry. "What's
up now?"

"Something uncommonly like a white squall, sir," hurriedly explained
Jackson. "It's coming down fast on us from windward, and will b