id, and
approved of his suggestion, for he nodded in answer; and, thereupon, the
first-mate, working his way down again through the cabin on to the deck
below, the poop ladder being unsafe with his injured arm, spoke to the
men, who were holding on as well as they could in a group by the
mainmast bitts, and they began to bestir themselves.

Something was evidently going to be done to relieve the ship of all the
loose top hamper flying about aloft, which threatened every moment to
drag the masts out of her, for everything was swaying to and fro, and
the topsails jerking terribly as they swelled out, the clews fouling the
reef points as the wind threw them up, and all getting mixed in
irretrievable confusion from the continual slatting of the canvas--for
the whole of the running gear, having been let go, was now dangling
about in all directions and knotting itself up in the standing rigging,
round which the wind whipped the ropes, lashing them into a series of
bowlines and half-hitches that it would have puzzled a fisherman to
unbend.

When the storm had burst so suddenly on us, the ship had been braced up
on the port tack, beating to windward as well as she could, to weather
Cape Horn; but now, of course, we were running right before the gale,
retracing at headlong speed every knot we had previously gained on our
true course.

A few hours at this rate, as anyone with half an eye could see--even if
everything stood the strain, which was very questionable--would place us
on the chart pretty well where we were the day before; and, then, we
should have all our work to do over again, without having a cable's
length to boast of to the good so far as our onward progress was
concerned into the Pacific Ocean--most aptly named by the Spaniards,
from the marked contrast its placid bosom offered, no doubt, to the
rough sea these early voyagers met with on this side of the Land of Fire
and of the Stormy Cape.

But still, although we were scudding with everything flying aloft, the
leebraces had not yet been let go, all that I have taken so long to
describe having occurred, so to speak, within the compass of a minute.
These, up to now, had remained fast, just as when we were close-hauled
on the port tack the moment before; for, it was as much as our few hands
could do at first to cast off the sheets and halliards, without minding
the braces, especially as the ropes had got jammed at the bitts with the
loose gear washing about the