that lay prone and waterlogged at
their mercy; while we, from the superior elevation of our buoyant deck,
could look over and beyond the nearly submerged hull, and watch with
breathless anxiety the swoop of every giant wave as it surged down upon
the wreck and buried her in a blinding smother of seething, milk-white
foam. But, beaten down, inert, and waterlogged as was the brig, her
cargo was evidently of such a character as to impart a considerable
measure of buoyancy to her; for though every sea that broke over her
completely buried her for the moment, she invariably reappeared on the
hinder slope of the baffled comber, apparently little or none the worse
for her momentary submergence. Her triumphant survival, indeed, of
these continuous and overwhelming onslaughts soon convinced me that her
crew had little to fear from the prospect of her speedy foundering;
their danger lay not in any such probability, but consisted in the
likelihood of their being torn from their precarious hold in the rigging
by every sea that swept and raged over them.

This danger was, of course, greatly increased when the men began to move
inward toward the hull, thus more fully exposing themselves to the fury
of every surge that swept over it. And of this fact we soon had a most
painful and melancholy illustration; for as the group, after waiting for
two or three minutes for a favourable opportunity, essayed to scramble
out of the rigging, and make their way aft along the brig's upturned
side to her quarter--where they would be clear of the gear and rigging
when they took to the water--a small and comparatively innocuous sea
broke over the hull, which, harmless as it was compared with most of its
predecessors, had still enough of weight and spite in it to sweep one of
the poor fellows from his precarious foothold into the seething, hissing
swirl to leeward. The man tossed his arms over his head, with a wild
shriek for help, as the smother carried him along in its suffocating
embrace, and Joe promptly made a spring for a spare _life-buoy_ that we
had provided for such an emergency; but before it could be thrown the
unfortunate wretch was hurled over the brig's mainyard as it lifted out
of the water, and the next instant he disappeared beneath the foot of
the main-topsail, the wide spaces of which immediately shut down upon
and buried him as the roll of the hull once more submerged her spars.
We never saw the poor fellow again, and there is no