ship. Both watches had been taking in sail, so that
both watches were on deck for the manoeuvre.

It was astounding, the big sea that had arisen in so short a time. The
wind was blowing a gale that ever, in recurring gusts, increased upon
itself. Nothing was visible a hundred yards away. The day had become
black-gray. In the cabin lamps were burning. The view from the poop,
along the length of the great labouring ship, was magnificent. Seas
burst and surged across her weather-rail and kept her deck half filled,
despite the spouting ports and gushing scuppers.

On each of the two houses and on the poop the ship's complement, all in
oilskins, was in groups. For'ard, Mr. Mellaire had charge. Mr. Pike
took charge of the 'midship-house and the poop. Captain West strolled up
and down, saw everything, said nothing; for it was the mate's affair.

When Mr. Pike ordered the wheel hard up, he slacked off all the mizzen-
yards, and followed it with a partial slacking of the main-yards, so that
the after-pressures were eased. The foresail and fore-lower- and-upper-
topsails remained flat in order to pay the head off before the wind. All
this took time. The men were slow, not strong, and without snap. They
reminded me of dull oxen by the way they moved and pulled. And the gale,
ever snorting harder, now snorted diabolically. Only at intervals could
I glimpse the group on top the for'ard-house. Again and again, leaning
to it and holding their heads down, the men on the 'midship-house were
obliterated by the drive of crested seas that burst against the rail,
spouted to the lower-yards, and swept in horizontal volumes across to
leeward. And Mr. Pike, like an enormous spider in a wind-tossed web,
went back and forth along the slender bridge that was itself a shaken
thread in the blast of the storm.

So tremendous were the gusts that for the time the _Elsinore_ refused to
answer. She lay down to it; she was swept and racked by it; but her head
did not pay off before it, and all the while we drove down upon that
bitter, iron coast. And the world was black-gray, and violent, and very
cold, with the flying spray freezing to ice in every lodgment.

We waited. The groups of men, head down to it, waited. Mr. Pike,
restless, angry, his blue eyes as bitter as the cold, his mouth as much a-
snarl as the snarl of the elements with which he fought, waited. The
Samurai waited, tranquil, casual, remote. And Cape Horn waited,