220 FISHERMEN'S OWN BOOK, 



cedented height, and there was a sharp choppy sea in the harbor. After 

 we had veered out the cable, but while the men were still on deck, we saw a 

 vessel* driving ^own directly for us, broadside to the wind. We made an 

 attempt to sheer our vessel out of her path, but were only partially successful. 

 She struck us on the port bow, and her starboard anchor, which hung at the 

 cat-head, caught over our port cable. This brought the strain of both ves- 

 sels on our anchors, which gave way, and down we went under the bow of 

 the Lizzie Tarr, broadside on, the bowsprit of the latter vessel coming in 

 over our quarter-rail, and passing between the starboard main rigging and 

 the mainmast, while the Lizzie Cook lay on our port side, pounding away at 

 us as she rose and fell with the sea. For a time it seemed that our vessel 

 would be ground up between the other two, or that the whole three of us 

 would be driven together in a pile on the bar, not more than three hundred 

 fathoms to leeward, over which the sea was breaking masthead high. For- 

 tunately the Tarr's anchors held on, and gave us time to extricate our ves- 

 sel from her dangerous position. In less time than it takes to write it, I 

 had jumped on board of the Cook and requested her skipper to pay out 

 more cable so that his vessel would drop aft on our quarter. This he did, 

 and, watching for the right moment, the lanyards of our starboard main rig- 

 ging were cut away, freeing the bowsprit of the Tarr ; our vessel swung head 

 to the wind, and we paid out on our cables, dropping down between the 

 other two vessels, and astern of them, where we held on, thinking we would 

 be safe. But in this we were disappointed, for before we had a chance to 

 reeve off new lanyards for our rigging, we were startled by the cry that our 

 starboard cable had been cut by the crew of one of the vessels we had been 

 in collision with. The first thing to be done was to rig the stock in the 

 "spare anchor" which we had on deck. We had just completed this job 

 and were about to bend the cable to the anchor, when some one shouted 

 out in a dismayed tone, "We're all adrift! they've cut our other cable." 

 Not a moment could be wasted, for the foaming and roaring breakers on the 

 bar were right to leeward. Luckily our vessel fell off head to the eastward, 

 and I instantly determined to run out of the harbor, though the darkness 

 of the night, intensified by the blinding snow, rendered the attempt to pass 

 between the southern bars an extremely hazardous undertaking. As I ran 

 aft to clear the wheel, I shouted, " Bear a hand on the foresail ; be lively, 

 now, and get it on her ! " It was soon up about as high as if it was single- 

 reefed, when I righted the wheel, the sail filled, and our little vessel started 

 off with the speed of a race-horse, dragging behind her the port cable, which, 

 stretching out in the wake, and glistening with phosphorescence, looked like 

 an immense fiery sea serpent. " Hard up ! keep her off ! " shouted the look- 



* The Lizzie Cook of Newburyport. 



