ne of those exciting and fearful minutes that are so familiar to
mariners. Each man was intent on his duty, while the elements worked their
will around him, as madly as if the hand by which they are ordinarily
restrained was for ever removed. The bay was a sheet of foam, while the
rushing of the gust resembled the dull rumbling of a thousand chariots.
The ship yielded to the pressure, until the water was seen gushing
through her lee-scuppers, and her tall line of masts inclined towards the
plane of the bay, as if the ends of the yards were about to dip into the
water. But this was no more than the first submission to the shock. The
well-moulded fabric recovered its balance, and struggled through its
element, as if conscious that there was security only in motion. Ludlow
glanced his eye to leeward. The opening of the Cove was favorably
situated, and he caught a glimpse of the spars of the brigantine, rocking
violently in the squall. He spoke to demand if the anchors were clear, and
then he was heard, shouting again from his station in the weather
gangway--

"Hard a-weather!--"

The first efforts of the cruiser to obey her helm, stripped as she was of
canvas, were labored and slow. But when her head began to fall off, the
driving scud was scarce swifter than her motion. At that moment, the
sluices of the cloud opened, and a torrent of rain mingled in the uproar,
and added to the confusion. Nothing was now visible but the lines of the
falling water, and the sheet of white foam through which the ship was
glancing.

"Here is the land, Sir!" bellowed Trysail, from a cat-head, where he stood
resembling some venerable sea-god, dripping with his native element. "We
are passing it, like a race-horse!"

"See your bowers clear!" shouted back the captain.

"Ready, Sir, ready--"

Ludlow motioned to the men at the wheel, to bring the ship to the wind;
and when her way was sufficiently deadened, two ponderous anchors dropped,
at another signal, into the water. The vast fabric was not checked without
a further and tremendous struggle. When the bows felt the restraint, the
ship swung head to wind, and fathom after fathom of the enormous ropes
were extracted, by surges so violent as to cause the hull to quiver to its
centre. But the first lieutenant and Trysail were no novices in their
duty, and, in less than a minute, they had secured the vessel steadily at
her anchors. When this important service was performed, officers and crew