oon as Captain Billings had got
down into the stern-sheets, he gave the order to shove off.

"Easy her away gently, men," he said, as he took up the tiller lines,
watching with a critical eye the movements of the men amidships and in
the bow, as they poled the boat along the side of the ship until it
passed clear of her by the stern. "Be ready there with your oars,
sharp!"

In another moment the boat was tossing about in the open sea, the height
and force of the waves becoming all the more apparent now that we had
lost the protection of the _Esmeralda's_ lee. The flames just then, as
if angry at our having escaped them, darted up the mizzen rigging, and
presently enveloped the poop in their blaze, so that the whole ship was
now one mass of fire fore and aft, blazing like a tar-barrel.

The skipper would have liked to have lain by and seen the last of the
vessel, but there was too much sea on, and the wind seemed getting up
again; so, knowing how treacherous the weather was in the vicinity of
the Cape of Storms, he determined, for the safety of those under his
charge, to make for the land as speedily as possible--an open boat not
being the best craft in the world to be in, out on the ocean, when a
gale is about!

As Captain Billings could see, the wind was blowing on shore, in the
very direction for us to go; and, as the rollers were racing towards the
same goal, the only way for us to avoid being swamped by them was to
travel at a greater rate forwards than they did, or else we would
broach-to in the troughs of the waves, when a boat is apt to get for the
moment becalmed, from the intervening wall of water on either side
stopping the current of air, and taking the breeze out of her sails.

The long-boat was fitted with a couple of masts, carrying a large
mainsail and a mizzen, both of which the skipper now ordered to be set,
the former close-reefed to half its size. A bit of a staysail was also
hoisted forwards in place of the jib, which was too large for the wind
that was on; and then, it was wonderful to see the way the long-boat
began to go through the water when the sail was put on her! She fairly
raced along, dragging astern the jolly-boat, which we had taken in tow,
the little craft leaving a curly wave in front of her cutwater, higher
than her bows, and looking as if it were on the point of pouring over on
top of those in her.

It was now late in the afternoon of this, our sixty-third day out of
port;