that
atoned for his momentary confusion, by its steadiness and force.

"Hold! Does the ship mind her helm at all?"

"Not an inch, sir."

"Then cut," Wilder clearly and calmly added.

A single blow sufficed for the discharge of the momentary act. Extended to
the utmost powers of endurance, by the vast weight it upheld, the lanyard
struck by Earing no sooner parted, than each of its fellows snapped in
succession, leaving the mast dependant on itself alone for the support of
all its ponderous and complicated hamper. The cracking of the wood came
next; and then the rigging fell, like a tree that had been sapped at its
foundation, the little distance that still existed between it and the sea.

"Does she fall off?" instantly called Wilder to the observant seaman at
the wheel.

"She yielded a little, sir; but this new squall is bringing her up again."

"Shall I cut?" shouted Earing from the main rigging whither he had leaped,
like a tiger who had bounded on his prey.

"Cut!" was the answer.

A loud and imposing crash soon succeeded this order, though not before
several heavy blows had been struck into the massive mast itself. As
before, the seas received the tumbling maze of spars, rigging and sails;
the vessel surging, at the same instant from its recumbent position, and
rolling far and heavily to windward.

"She rights! she rights!" exclaimed twenty voices which had been hitherto
mute, in a suspense that involved life and death.

"Keep her dead away!" added the still calm but deeply authoritative voice
of the young Commander "Stand by to furl the fore-topsail--let it hang a
moment to drag the ship clear of the wreck--cut cut--cheerily,
men--hatchets and knives--cut _with_ all, and cut _off_ all!"

As the men now worked with the freshened vigour of revived hope, the ropes
that still confined the fallen spars to the vessel were quickly severed;
and the "Caroline," by this time dead before the gale, appeared barely to
touch the foam that covered the sea, like a bird that was swift upon the
wing skimming the waters. The wind came over the waste in gusts that
rumbled like distant thunder, and with a power that seemed to threaten to
lift the ship and its contents from its proper element, to deliver it to
one still more variable and treacherous. As a prudent and sagacious seaman
had let fly the halyards of the solitary sail that remained, at the moment
when the squall approached, the loosened but lowered topsail was no