to go without the latter.

About two hours after sunset the wind freshened up still more, and by
midnight it was blowing so heavily, and so mountainous a sea was
running, that I dared not any longer leave the brig to herself; it
became necessary to constantly tend the helm, although the craft was
hove-to; and in consequence I had no alternative but to pass the latter
half of this night also at the wheel, exposed to a pelting rain that
quickly drenched me to the skin. It was now blowing a whole gale from
the northward; and so it continued for the next thirty hours, during
nearly the whole of which time I remained at the wheel, wet, cold, and
nearly crazy at the last for want of rest; indeed, but for the
attention--almost amounting to devotion--of my companion I believe I
should never have weathered that terrible time of fatigue and exposure.
An end to it came at last, however; the gale broke, the wind softened
down somewhat, and at length the sea went down sufficiently to permit of
the wheel being once more lashed; when, leaving the brig in Miss
Onslow's charge, with strict injunctions that I was at once to be called
in the event of a change for the worse in the weather, I went below,
rolled into the mate's bunk, and instantly lost all consciousness for
the ensuing ten hours. It was somewhere about midnight when I awoke;
yet when I turned out I found Miss Onslow still up, and not only so but
with a hot and thoroughly appetising meal ready for me. We sat down and
partook of it together; and when we had finished I went on deck, had a
look round, found that the weather had greatly improved during my long
sleep, and so turned in again until morning.

When I next went on deck the weather had cleared, the wind had dwindled
to a five-knot breeze--hauling out from the eastward again at the same
time--and the sea had gone down to such an extent as to be scarcely
perceptible; I therefore shook out my reefs, and once more made sail
upon the ship--a task that kept me busy right up to noon. The weather
being fine, I was able to secure a meridian altitude of the sun, and
thus ascertain the latitude of the brig, with the resulting discovery
that we were already to the southward of the Cape parallels. This was
disconcerting in the extreme, the more so from the fact that the
easterly wind was forcing us still farther to the southward; but there
was no help for it, we could do nothing but keep all on as we were and
hope for a shift