e long, thick and strong," I heard him remark to
the first mate, though at the time there was scarcely a breath of wind.
"We'll stow the mainsail, and close reef the topsails."

"Ay, ay, sir," answered the mate, and the hands were sent aloft to
perform the operation. Still an hour or more passed away, and we
continued on our course.

"The old man is croaking again," growled out Dan Hogan.

"Belay the slack there, mate. The captain keeps his weather eye open,
which is more than some aboard this ship do," said Eben Dredge. "What
do you think of those black clouds out there?"

"Maybe there's a little wind in them," answered Hogan.

"A little do you say!" exclaimed Dredge. "See, here it comes to show us
whether there's a little or not."

As he spoke the wind struck the ship like the blow of a mighty hammer
right ahead. She gathered stern way and some of the after dead-lights
being open the cabin was half filled with water. Had we been under more
sail, the ship might possibly have gone down or her masts would have
been carried away. I rushed forward to call the carpenter and his mate,
and we soon had the dead-lights closed. While I was afterwards engaged
with the steward in swabbing up the cabin and putting things to rights
we felt the ship give some tremendous rolls.

"Hillo! what for come ober her now?" exclaimed Domingo, my companion,
who was a black.

On going on deck I found that she had fallen off into the trough of the
sea, and was being sent from side to side in away which seemed
sufficient to jerk the masts out of her. The rigging was well set up,
or they would have gone to a certainty. We had not seen the worst of
it. The gale blew harder and harder, and presently down came the rain
in a way I had never seen it fall before, in regular torrents, as if
some huge reservoirs had been emptied out on us in a moment, flooding
the decks, and wetting us through our pea-coats to the skin.

Though several accidents happened we weathered this our first real gale,
and I found that the one we had encountered in the Bay of Biscay was
scarcely worthy of the name of a gale. Sail being again made, we stood
southward, till at the end of April we sighted Cape Horn, and the hopes
of all were raised that we should soon be round it; but not half an hour
afterwards, the wind shifting to the west and blowing with tremendous
force, a mountainous sea getting up drove us back into the South
Atlantic.

The moment the wi