bo'sun and Martin and Hans took turns of the steering; that was
work beyond the rest of us, and the most we could do was to stand by
a-lee and bear on the spokes with the helmsman. Dutchy was the best
steersman, and his steering was no truer than the stout heart of him.
Once she pooped, and the crest of a huge following sea came crashing on
top of us. But for our hold-fasts, all would have been swept away.
That was the time of trial. A falter at the helm--she would have
'broached-to'--to utter destruction!

Amid the furious rush of broken water, 'Dutchy' stood fast at his post,
though there was a gash on his forehead and blood running in his
eyes--the work of the wrenching wheel.

We showed no lights; no lamps would stand to the weather. There was
only the flickering binnacle, tended as never was temple fire, to show
the compass card. By turns we kept a look-out from the tops'l yard,
but of what use was that when we could steer but to one point. We were
a ship of chance, and God help us and the outward-bounder, 'hove-to' in
the trough, that had come between us and the east that night!

How we looked for daylight! How it was long a-coming! How the
mountain seas raced up and hove our barque, reeling from the blow, from
towering crest to hollow of the trough! How every day of the
twenty-five years of her cried out in creak of block, in clatter of
chain sheet, in the 'harping' of the backstays, the straining groan of
the burdened masts!

From time to time through the night the Mate and some of us would go
forward to see to the gear; there was no need to touch a brace, for the
wind blew ominously true. When we got back again, battered and
breathless, it was something to know that the foretops'l still stood
the strain. It was a famous sail, a web of '00 storm,' stitched and
fortified at seam and roping for such a wind as this. Good luck to the
hands that stitched it, to the dingy sail loft in the Govan Road that
turned it out, for it stood us in stead that night!

Once an ill-stowed clew of the mains'l blew out with a sounding crack,
and thrashed a 'devil's tattoo' on the yard. We thought it the tops'l
gone--but no! Macallison's best stood bravely spread to the shrieking
gale, and we soon had the ribbons of the main clew fast to the yard.

There was no broad dawn, no glow in the east to mark its breaking; the
light grew out of the darkness. The masts and spars shaped themselves
out of the gloom, till they