thought that I should have been hove out of the narrow crib
in which I was stowed away in the very bows of the vessel. Sometimes I
felt the head of the brig lifted up, and then down it came like a
sledge-hammer into the water; now I felt myself rolled on one side, now
on the other. I fully thought that the vessel must be on the rocks.
Not a gleam of light reached me, nor could I hear the sound of a human
voice. I wanted to be out of the place; but when I tried to get up, I
felt so sick and wretched, that I lay down again with an idea that it
would be more comfortable to die where I was. At last, however, Barney
Bogle came below and discovered me.

"Turn out, you young skulker; turn out!" he exclaimed, belabouring me
with a rope's end. "Didn't you hear all hands called to shorten sail an
hour ago?"

I had no help for it, so on deck I crawled, where the grey light of
morning was streaming from beneath a dark mass of clouds which hung
overhead, and a gale was blowing which sent the foam flying from the
tops of the seas, deluging us fore and aft. Now the brig was lifted up
to the summit of a wave, and now down she sank into the trough of the
sea, with a liquid wall on one side which, as it came curling on, looked
as if it must inevitably overwhelm her. She was under close-reefed
topsails and storm-jib, and two of the best hands were at the helm.
Peter was one of them. I managed to climb up to windward, and to hold
on by the weather-fore-rigging, where the rest of the crew were
collected.

I shall never forget the dark, dreary, and terrific scene which the
ocean presented to my unaccustomed sight. At first, too, I felt very
sick and miserable, and I thought that I would far rather have been
starving on shore than going to be drowned, as I fancied, and being
tossed about by the rough ocean. Barney, who was on deck before me,
abused me as I crawled up near him, and contrived to give me a kick,
which, had I let go my hold, as it was calculated to make me do, would
probably have been the cause of my immediate destruction. At that
moment a huge sea came rolling up towards the brig, topping high above
our deck. I saw Peter Poplar and the other man at the helm looking out
anxiously at it. They grasped tighter hold of the spokes of the wheel,
and planted their feet firmer on the deck. Captain Helfrich and his
mates were standing by the main-rigging.

"Hold on, hold on for your lives, my men!" he sung out. The crew