recastle, and a hollow shout of "All hands reef tops'ls ahoy!"

Up tumbled the "starbowlines," or starboard watch, and joined the
"larbowlines" in the struggle with the elements. No more sleep that night
for man, boy, mate, or master. Reef after reef was taken in the topsails,
until they were two long, narrow shingles of canvas, and still the wind
brought the vessel well down on her beam ends, as if it would squeeze her
by main force under water. The men were scarcely on deck from their last
reefing job, when boom! went the jib, bursting out as if shot from a
cannon, and then whipping itself to tatters.

"Lay out forrard!" screamed the mate. "Lay out and furl it."

After a desperate struggle, half the time more or less under water, two
men dragged in and fastened the fragments of the jib, while others set the
foretop-mast staysail in its place. But the wind was full of mischief; it
seemed to be playing with the ship's company; it furnished one piece of
work after another with dizzying rapidity. Hardly was the jib secured
before the great mainsail ripped open from top to bottom, and in the same
puff the close-reefed foretopsail split in two with a bang, from earing to
earing. Now came the orders fast and loud: "Down yards! Haul out reef
tackle! Lay out and furl! Lay out and reef!"

It was a perfect mess; a score of ropes flying at once; the men rolling
about and holding on; the sails slapping like mad, and ends of rigging
streaming off to leeward. After an exhausting fight the mainsail was
furled, the upper half of the topsail set close-reefed, and everything
hauled taut again. Now came an hour or so without accident, but not
without incessant and fatiguing labor, for the two royal yards were
successively sent down to relieve the upper masts, and the foretopgallant
sail, which had begun to blow loose, was frapped with long pieces of
sinnet.

During this period of comparative quiet Thurstane ventured an attempt to
reach his stateroom. The little gloomy cabin was going hither and thither
in a style which reminded him of the tossings of Gulliver's cage after it
had been dropped into the sea by the Brobdingnag eagle. The steward was
seizing up mutinous trunks and chairs to the table legs with rope-yarns.
The lamp was swinging and the captain's compass see-sawing like monkeys
who had gone crazy in bedlams of tree-tops. From two of the staterooms
came sounds which plainly confessed that the occupants were having a bad
nigh