nd abated we again made sail, and endeavoured to regain
our lost ground. It was trying work. The weather was bitterly cold--
the days little more than seven hours long--we scarcely ever had a dry
rag on our backs, for when the rain was not falling the sea was
continually breaking over us, knocking away our bulwarks, and
threatening to carry off those on deck to destruction. Scarcely had we
made good forty or fifty miles to the westward, than the wind increasing
we had again to heave-to under a close-reefed fore-topsail. Here we lay
day after day, drifting rapidly back from the point it had taken us so
long to gain. Each day, too, saw our bulwarks more and more shattered
by the furious seas constantly breaking on board.

During this time I was one forenoon in the pantry, just outside the
captain's cabin, when Domingo, handing me a wooden bowl containing the
ingredients for a plum pudding, said, "Here you, Jack, carry dis to de
galley, and tell de cook to boil him well."

I was bound to obey the steward, black though he was, and away I sped on
my errand. Just as I reached the deck the ship gave a lurch and sent me
down to leeward, when instead of, as I ought to have done, making my way
up to windward, to save the distance, I ran along on the lee side of the
deck. Before, however, my destination was reached I saw rising up right
ahead a high, dark, foam-crested sea. On it came. With a crash like
thunder it broke on board, and rushed roaring and hissing along the
deck. Letting go the bowl, I frantically clutched a handspike sticking
in the windlass, the nearest object to me. The fierce water surrounded
me, the handspike unshipped, and, still grasping it, I felt myself borne
away into the seething, hissing ocean. At that instant the ship gave
another lee-lurch--all hope was gone--every incident of my life passed
through my mind--when I caught a glimpse of the cook darting out of his
galley; seizing me by the collar he dragged me in, dripping wet and half
stunned. It was the work of a moment.

Directly afterwards the watch on the quarterdeck came hurrying forward
with the third mate, who sang out, in a tone of alarm, "Where is that
boy?" making sure that I had been carried overboard, he not having seen
the cook lift me into the galley. When he found me there--though I
fancied that I deserved commiseration, for my teeth chattered with cold
and fright, and I looked like a drowned rat--he rated me soundly for
hav