ave-to
in a cyclone in the northern hemisphere--and I shall never forget the
feeling of absolute helplessness that seized me when, as our little
craft gradually presented her broadside to the gale, I felt her going
over--over--over--until the water poured in a raging cataract over her
lee rail, and she laid down beneath the strength of the howling blast--
that now seemed to have suddenly increased to twice its former fury--
until the lee side of her deck was buried almost to the combings of the
hatchways. But as her bows came round and presented themselves more
obliquely to the gale she righted somewhat, and although she still
careened until her lee rail was all but awash, she rode the furious seas
as gallantly and buoyantly as a gull.

Ryan had displayed a very considerable amount of judgment in conducting
the schooner down to the berth he had chosen for her, and had placed her
there in so natural a manner that we scarcely believed it possible that
our presence so near the barque would be likely to arouse any suspicions
of our intentions in the minds of her crew; and as we had never been
very near her during the time of our former pursuit of her, we were in
hopes that we should not now be recognised. We had taken up a position
exactly to leeward of our neighbour; and, as Ryan had anticipated, we
soon found that the schooner was looking up a full point higher than the
bigger craft; but this was very evenly balanced by the greater amount of
lee drift that we made, in consequence of our much lighter draught; we
therefore, contrived to maintain our position with almost perfect
exactitude, except that the schooner manifested the greater tendency to
forge ahead, thus placing herself gradually further upon the barque's
lee bow.

The wind continued to blow with unabated fury, and when day broke and we
were able to look about us, the scene was grand and awful beyond all
power of description. The sky was of an uniform deep, slaty,
purple-grey hue, across the face of which careered a constant succession
of lighter grey, smoky-looking clouds, all shredded and torn to tatters
by the headlong sweep of the gale. The colour of the sea was a dirty
green, deepening in tint to purple-black in the hollows, and capped by
long ridges of dirty yellowish foam, that was continuously snatched up
by the wind and hurled through the air in drenching sheets that cut and
stung the skin like the lash of a whip. The sea, although not so high
as