ck weighing a ton had
been cast against it by some giant of the sea or the storm. I was
afraid our house on deck would be carried away by the tempest.

On board of a large vessel, the loss of a house on deck was a matter of
no serious consequences. It was entirely different with the Sylvania,
for the loss of it would open the hold to the entrance of the sea. The
deluge of water would put out the fire in the furnaces, disabling the
engine. The result must be the loss of the vessel and all on board of
her. I trembled when I thought of it. Another mountain billow struck
the house a little farther aft. I was not willing to wait for another
sea to strike her in what I regarded as her weakest point, and we put
the helm down. We must give up our course for the safety of the vessel.

The steamer made a terrible plunge as we shifted the helm, but we soon
got her across the sea. Now she pitched instead of rolling. I called to
the engineer, through the speaking-tube, to give her but about half
speed, for it made her labor more heavily to drive her into the seas. I
calculated that this rate of speed would keep her about stationary on
the water. I soon found that she was falling astern. I directed the
engineer to give her more steam. I soon gauged it so that she had
headway enough to keep her up to the seas without forcing her through
them. A sort of equilibrium was established, which gave her an easier
position, though it was by no means an easy one. Her bow rose so that
the deck must have been at an angle of forty-five degrees, and then she
dived down from the top of a big wave at about the same angle.

Our port and starboard, as well as the masthead light were burning, and
we had closed in the pilot-house, so that we could see nothing ahead.
But I found the steamer was manageable when I had got her head to the
sea, and I sent Hop Tossford to call the mate and Buck Lingley. I could
not tell what might happen, and I felt that all hands should be on
deck. I wondered they had not put in an appearance before. But they
were all used to this sort of thing, for we had been through a tempest
almost as bad in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and several milder ones at
other times.

The water swashed fore and aft, but no longer pounded against the house
on deck. It poured over the bow, so that it was not safe to put a man
on the lookout there. The only thing we had to fear while we were
lying-to in this manner was a collision with some other ve