OF THE SOUTH SEAS 175 



breaking, so that there was a chance to get away. We 

 were hanging on to stays and anything fixed. 



"The captain now gave up hope, as we had long ago. 

 He ordered all hands to make ready to lower the one 

 boat we had left, and to desert the ship. We had a 

 hard time to get this boat loose from the spanker-stay, 

 and we lowered it with the spanker- tackle. Just while 

 we were doing that, a tremendous wave swept the poop, 

 with a battering-ram of logs that had returned. Luck- 

 ily, the boat we were lowering escaped being smashed, 

 or we had all been dead men now. 



"We filled a tank with twenty-five gallons of water 

 from the scuttle-butts and carried it to the boat. The 

 old man ordered the cook and the boy to get some grub 

 he had in a locker in liis cabin, high up, where he had 

 put it away from the flood. The cook and the boy were 

 scared stiff, and when they went into the cabin, a sea 

 came racing in, and all saved was twenty pounds of 

 soda crackers, twelve one-pound tins of salt beef, three 

 of tongue, thirty-two cans of milk, thirty-eight of soup, 

 and four of jam. 



"We went into the boat with nothing but what we 

 wore, and that was little. Some of us had no coats, 

 and some no hats, and others were without any shoes. 

 We were in rags from the terrible fight with the logs 

 and the sea. The old man went below to get his medi- 

 cine-chest. He threw away the medicine, and put his 

 log and the ship's papers in it. He took up his chro- 

 nometer to bring it, when a wave like that which got 

 the cook and the boy knocked the skipper over and lost 

 the chronometer. All he got away with was his sextant 



