a wonder some of them did not fall off, getting sucked under the
keel of the ship; but, gripping the life-line with a clutch of
desperation, their passage across the perilous bridge was at last safely
accomplished, when the entire sixteen of us, including my own humble
self, were at length gathered together in one group on the counter-rail
below the bend of the poop. The new-comers were then lashed to the
mizzen rigging like the rest of us, and we all waited with what hope and
patience we could for the sea to calm down.

By this time, it was late in the afternoon; and, presently, the sun sank
down away to the west in his ocean bed, surrounded by a radiant glow of
crimson and gold that flashed upward from the horizon to the zenith.

The wind had died away too, the last violent squall which had been so
disastrous to the _Josephine_, having been the expiring blast of the
hurricane; so, although, as I've said, the sea still continued to run
high, the waves rolled by more regularly and with an equal pulsation, as
if Father Neptune was rocking himself gradually to sleep. The old
tyrant was evidently; exhausted with the mad rioting in which he had
recently been indulging, and the thrashing which the gale had given him!

There was no sleep for us, however, excepting such hasty little
droppings off into brief forgetfulness that our worn-out bodies gave way
to for an instant; for we were constantly being roused up, almost as
soon as our wearied eyelids had closed, by the sudden rush of the spent
wash of some broken wave wetting our already wet garments. This
banished all thoughts of repose; and, when the darkness of night came
on, it was cold and dreary in the extreme, the hours seeming to drag out
to the length of a lifetime.

Poor faithful Jake lay close to me so as to protect me as much as
possible from the wash of the sea; and I found out, when morning light
came once more to cheer us, that he had actually stripped off a guernsey
vest, which Captain Miles had given him to save him from exposure on the
night of the thunder-storm, and had fastened this round my shoulders in
order to keep me warm!

I shall never forget Jake's thoughtful action, I believe, as long as I
live, for it made a great impression on me when I discovered such a
striking proof of his devotion; and, as I now retrace the incidents of
the past, the incident stands out prominently in evidence of a negro's
brotherly love.

Why, his black skin always s