156 
HOLD HARD ! 
rest. If she went off before the wind previous to the 
arrival of another heavy sea, we were all right; if she 
hung in the trough, we would, in all probability, founder 
in five minutes. In either case, nothing more could be 
done to help her: the die had been cast. 
“I grasped the rigging more tightly, and strained my 
eyes toward the labouring bow; but every thing was so 
dark and impenetrable that I could only hope that she was 
falling off. Suddenly I felt the wind drawing abeam, 
then abaft it. I began to breathe freely. ♦ * * ♦ 
What a glorious thing a propeller is ! Wlien the helm 
had been put up, the old tub was lying like a log in the 
troubled ocean, and yet the rushing waters of the whirl- 
ing screw, acting upon the lee face of the rudder, turned 
her as upon a pivot, thus bringing both wind and sea abaft 
the beam sooner than we had any reason to hope for. 
Yes; the dreaded ti'ough was passed quickly, and yet not 
a second too soon ; for it was no sooner accomplished 
than the heaviest sea of any that had yet struck us came 
rolling up under our weather quarter, broke completely 
over our decks, and caused the old ship to vibrate as if 
every timber in her had been started. 
“It was a beautiful as well as a fearful sight, to see that 
sea roar its tottering crest over the very quarter, cast 
itself bodily upon our trembling decks, and then rush for- 
ward, half of it in-board, half of it out-board, along our 
weather bulwarks, sweeping with it arm-chests, gratings, 
spare spars, yelping dogs, squeaking pigs, empty chicken- 
coops, struggling men, — in short, every thing that was 
movable. Some of these it swept completely overboard; 
others it lodged in the ropes along the bulwarks, or piled 
