or other, all of us, and groped our way out on the yard-arms.

"Hold on, every mother's son!" cried an old quarter-gunner at my side.
He was bawling at the top of his compass; but in the gale, he seemed to
be whispering; and I only heard him from his being right to windward of
me.

But his hint was unnecessary; I dug my nails into the _jack-stays_, and
swore that nothing but death should part me and them until I was able
to turn round and look to windward. As yet, this was impossible; I
could scarcely hear the man to leeward at my elbow; the wind seemed to
snatch the words from his mouth and fly away with them to the South
Pole.

All this while the sail itself was flying about, sometimes catching
over our heads, and threatening to tear us from the yard in spite of
all our hugging. For about three quarters of an hour we thus hung
suspended right over the rampant billows, which curled their very
crests under the feet of some four or five of us clinging to the
lee-yard-arm, as if to float us from our place.

Presently, the word passed along the yard from wind-ward, that we were
ordered to come down and leave the sail to blow, since it could not be
furled. A midshipman, it seemed, had been sent up by the officer of the
deck to give the order, as no trumpet could be heard where we were.

Those on the weather yard-arm managed to crawl upon the spar and
scramble down the rigging; but with us, upon the extreme leeward side,
this feat was out of the question; it was, literary, like climbing a
precipice to get to wind-ward in order to reach the shrouds: besides,
the entire yard was now encased in ice, and our hands and feet were so
numb that we dared not trust our lives to them. Nevertheless, by
assisting each other, we contrived to throw ourselves prostrate along
the yard, and embrace it with our arms and legs. In this position, the
stun'-sail-booms greatly assisted in securing our hold. Strange as it
may appear, I do not suppose that, at this moment, the slightest
sensation of fear was felt by one man on that yard. We clung to it with
might and main; but this was instinct. The truth is, that, in
circumstances like these, the sense of fear is annihilated in the
unutterable sights that fill all the eye, and the sounds that fill all
the ear. You become identified with the tempest; your insignificance is
lost in the riot of the stormy universe around.

Below us, our noble frigate seemed thrice its real length--a vast black