CRIPPLED BY THE STORM. 447 



gave a lurch to leeward, and then righted so suddenly 

 that the little topsail which had clone us such good 

 service went into ribbons, the top-mast cracked off at 

 the cap, and crash went the jib-boom right away 

 afterward. " Hard a-lee ! " was rather a melancholy 

 sort of order to give under the circumstances, and, as 

 was to be expected, when the helm went down we 

 were thrown into the trough of the next sea, where 

 we were caught amidships by the ugliest wave that I 

 ever happened to look upon, and down it thundered 

 upon us, staving in the bulwarks, sweeping the decks 

 from stem to stern, and carrying every thing over- 

 board, our water-casks included. The schooner shiv- 

 ered all over as if every rib in her little body was 

 broken, and for a moment I felt sure that she was 

 knocked over on her beam ends; but the craft 

 seemed to possess more lives than a cat, and, right- 

 ing in an instant, shook herself free of the water, 

 took the next wave on the bow, rose to it nobly, and 

 then shot squarely into the wind's eye. " Bravely 

 done, little lady ! " was McCormick's caressing ap- 

 proval of her good behavior. 



We lay hove to for three days, at the end of which 

 time we found ourselves drifted from our course two 

 hundred miles. Meanwhile, there had been a good 

 deal of alarm caused by the loss of our water-casks. 

 We had an extra cask or so in the hold, but these 

 could not be got up without removing the main- 

 hatch, an effort not to be thought of, as the decks 

 were flooded and the vessel would be swamped ; so I 

 at once set myself to work to remedy the evil, and 

 succeeded perfectly. With a tea-kettle for a retort 

 and a barrel for a condenser, I managed to distil water 

 enough for the entire ship's company ; and, in less 



