_Calypso_; and
she is that _Calypso_ in which Henry Chester sailed out of Portsmouth
Harbour to make his first acquaintance with a sea life.

Though nearly four years have elapsed since then, he is still on board
of her. There stands he by the binnacle. No more a boy, but a young
man, and in a garb that bespeaks him of the quarter-deck--not before the
mast, for he is now the _Calypso's_ third officer. And her second is
not far-off; he is the generous youth who was the means of getting him
the berth. Also grown to manhood, he, too, is aft, lending a hand at
the helm, the strength of one man being insufficient to keep it steady
in that heavily rolling sea. On the poop-deck is Captain Gancy himself,
consulting a small chart, and filled with anxiety as at intervals
looking towards the companion-ladder he there sees his wife and
daughter, for he knows his vessel to be in danger and his dear ones as
well.

A glance at the barque reveals that she has been on a long voyage. Her
paint is faded, her sails patched, and there is rust along the chains
and around the hawse-holes. She might be mistaken for a whaler coming
off a four years' cruise. And nearly that length of time has she been
cruising, but not after whales. Her cargo, a full one, consists of
sandal-wood, spices, tortoise-shell, mother-of-pearl, and real pearls
also--in short, a miscellaneous assortment of the commodities obtained
by traffic in the islands and around the coasts of the great South Sea.

Her last call has been at Honolulu Harbour in the Sandwich Isles, and
she is now homeward-bound for New York around the Horn. A succession of
westerly winds, or rather continuation of them, has forced her too far
on to the Fuegian coast, too near the Furies; and now tossed about on a
billowy sea, with the breakers of the Milky Way in sight to leeward, no
wonder that her crew are apprehensive for their safety.

Still, perilous as their situation, they might not so much regard it
were the _Calypso_ sound and in sailing trim. Unfortunately she is far
from this, having a damaged rudder, and with both courses torn to
shreds. She is lying-to under storm fore-staysail and close-reefed
try-sails, wearing at intervals, whenever it can be done with advantage,
to keep her away from those "white horses" a-lee. But even under the
diminished spread of canvas the barque is distressed beyond what she can
bear, and Captain Gancy is about to order a further reduction of canv