I followed him to near the mizzen rigging; neither of us durst let go with one hand until we had a grip of something else with the other; it was now not only the weight of the wind that would have laid us prone and pinned us to the deck—a pyramidal sea had sprung up as though by enchantment, and each apex as it soared about the bows and sides was blown inboards in very avalanches of water, which with each violent roll of the vessel poured in a solid body to the rail, one side or the other, again and again, to the height of our waist.

My companion extended his hand over the bulwarks, and cried out: 'Here is the lead-line. It stretches towards the bows. Oh, sir, we are adrift! we are blowing out to sea!'

I put my hand over and grasped the line, and instantly knew by the angle of it that the lad was right. By no other means would he have been able to get at the truth. The weight of lead, by resting on the bottom, immediately told if the barque was dragging. All around was white water; the blackness of the night drooped to the very spit of the brine; not a light was to be perceived, not the vaguest outline of the cliff; and the whole scene of darkness was the more bewildering for the throb of the near yeast upon the eyesight.

'Is your binnacle-light burning?' I cried.

The lad answered, 'Yes.'

'Then,' I shouted, 'we must find out the quarter the gale has shifted into and get her stern on to it, and clear Hurricane Point, if Almighty God will permit. There may be safety in the open; there is none here.'

With the utmost labour and distress we made our way aft. The flare had been extinguished by the heavy falls of water, and it was worse than walking blindfolded. The binnacle-light was burning—this was, indeed, to be expected. The barque was plunging directly head to wind, and a glance at the card enabled me to know that the gale was blowing almost due east, having shifted, as these cyclonic ragings often do, right into the quarter opposite whence it had come.

'We must endeavour to get her before it,' I cried; 'but I am no sailor. There may come another shift, and we ought to clear the land while the hurricane holds as it does. What is to be done?'

'Will she pay off if the helm is put hard over?' he answered. 'Let us try it!'

He seized the spokes on one side; I put my shoulder to the wheel on the other, and thus we jammed and 

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