e round afore the wind,
hadn't you?' 'Mynheer captain,' says the parson, 'you're a dreadful
good seaman, but you don't know no more about religious matters than a
horse.' 'That's true,' answered the skipper; 'so suit yourself, and
let fly as soon as you feel the spirit move, bekase that main-sail
wants reefin' awfully.' Well, the parson shuts his eyes, takes the
pipe out of his mouth, and gets under-weigh; but, onluckily, the first
word of the prayer was a Dutch one, as long as the maintop-bowline,
and as crooked as a monkey's tail, and the wind ketchen in the kinks
of it, rams it straight back into his throat, and kills him as dead as
a herrin'. 'Blixem!' says the skipper, 'there'll be brandy enough for
the voyage now.'"

"Sail, ho-o-o!" shouted a dozen voices, as a vivid flash of lightning
showed us the form of a small schooner riding upon the crest of a
wave, not two cables length ahead.

"Hard-a-lee!" shouted the skipper. "My God! make her luff, or we shall
be into them."

Slowly the ship obeyed her helm, and came up on the wind, trembling to
her keel, as the canvas, relieved from the strain, fluttered and
thrashed against the mast with immense violence, and a noise more
deafening than thunder, while the great seas dashed against the bows,
now in full front toward them, with the force and shock of huge rocks
projected from a catapult, and the wind shrieked and howled through
the rigging as if the spirits of the deep were rejoicing over our
dreadful situation.

Again the fiery flash shot suddenly athwart the sky.

Good God! the schooner, her deck and lower rigging black with human
beings, lay broadside to, scarcely ten rods from before our bows. A
cry of horror mingled with the rattling thunder and the howl of the
storm. I felt my blood curdle in my veins, and an oppression like the
nightmare obstructed my voice.

The schooner sunk in the trough, and, as the lightning paled,
disappeared from sight. The next moment our huge ship, with a headlong
pitch, was precipitated upon her. One crash of riven timbers, and a
yell of despairing agony, and all was over; the ship fell off from the
wind, and we were again driving madly forward into the almost palpable
darkness, tearing through the mountain seas.

"Rig the pumps and try them," cried Captain Smith, in a hoarse voice,
"we may have started a plank by the shock."

To the great joy of all, the ship was found to make no more water than
usual. All hands soon settle