Page:Twenty years before the mast - Charles Erskine, 1896.djvu/312

 courses and crogic clued up, the squall now struck us, and we had lively work before we got the ship under  bare poles. The wind blew furiously, lashing the sea into a perfect foam, from three to four feet deep. It was impossible to tell how rapidly the ship was driven  through the water. It must have been from eighteen to twenty knots, or more, an hour. The storm continued about six hours.

After the storm had subsided we had fair wind and pleasant weather and "watch and watch," until we  reached the cape, when we again experienced very rough  weather. One night, the wind, which had been abaft our quarter, suddenly shifted dead ahead. Our sails were taken all aback, and the ship got such stern-way on  her that everybody on board felt certain that she would  go down stern foremost. It seemed a miracle how she was ever got before the wind. The sea was running very high, and the wind blowing a terrific gale. The ship was taking in water over the bows, and the deck was flooded  fore and aft. All the sails were taken in, except the foretop-sail, which was blown out from the bolt-ropes,  scarcely a shred of it remaining. One of our boys, by the name of Ambrose Hazard, was knocked off the main-yard onto the deck by the flapping of the sail which he  was furling. He was picked up and carried into the cabin and put into a berth. Just then we shipped a very heavy sea which nearly flooded our forecastle and cabin. Poor Ambrose was washed out from his berth, and found floating in nearly two feet of water, dead. This gale was from the sou’east, and continued about thirty-six  hours, carrying us well around the cape.