up to it as this here _Laughing Mary_ does."

"The loss of hamper forward will make her the more weatherly," says
Captain Rosy. "But we're in an ugly part of the globe. When bad sailors
die they're sent here, I reckon. The worst nautical sinner can't be hove
to long off the Horn without coming out of it with a purged soul. He
must start afresh to deserve further punishment."

"Well, here's a breeze that can't go on blowing much longer," cries the
carpenter. "The place it comes from must give out soon, unless a new
trade wind's got fixed into a whole gale for this here ocean."

"What southing do you allow our drift will be giving us, captain?" I
asked, munching a piece of beef.

"All four mile an hour," he answered. "If this goes on I shall look to
make some discoveries. The Antarctic circle won't be far off presently,
and since you're a scholar, Rodney, I'll leave you to describe what's
inside of it, though boil me if I don't have the naming of the tallest
land; for, d'ye see, I've a mind to be known after I'm dead, and
there's nothing like your signature on a mountain to be remembered by."

He grinned and put his hand out for the bottle, and after a pull passed
it to the carpenter. I guessed by his jocosity that he had already been
making somewhat free; for although I love a bold face put upon a
difficulty, ours was a situation in which only a tipsy man could find
food for merriment.

At this instant we were startled by a wild and fearful shout on deck. It
sounded high above the sweeping and seething of the wind and the hissing
of the lashed waters, and it penetrated the planks with a note that gave
it an inexpressible character of anguish.

"A man washed overboard!" bawled the carpenter, springing to his feet.

"No!" cried I, for my younger and shrewder ear had caught a note in the
cry that persuaded me it was not as the carpenter said; and in an
instant the three of us jumped up the ladder and gained the deck.

The moment I was in the gale the same affrighted cry rang down along the
wind from some man forward: _"For God's sake tumble up before we are
upon it!"_

"What do you see?" I roared, sending my voice, trumpet-fashion, through
my hands; for as to my own and the sight of Captain Rosy and the
carpenter, why, it was like being struck blind to come on a sudden out
of the lighted cabin into the black night.

Any reply that might have been attempted was choked out by the dive of
the brig's head into a sea