ANOTHER heavy wave dashed over the bulwarks, and fell upon the deck, with a thump that made the ship tremble. The wind rose higher, and was soon howling among the rigging with a fierceness entirely new to me. Wave after wave swept over, and the deck was continually washed with the agitated waters. Evening came and I had no appetite for supper.

Night came, darkness frowned on the furious sea, the wind increased in violence, and fairly screamed among the ropes, shrouds, masts, and yards; we were indeed in a gale.

The ship tumbled about so, that I got sick; but determined not to give way to it. I stood by the cabin door, leaned over the high sill, and contributed my dinner to the waters of the ocean.

The sails had all been taken in but the three lower top-sails, and with those still unfurled, we had been running before the wind. These were now taken in—except the lower main top-sail, which is always left unfurled, in order to control the ship—and the vessel was hove to: that is, turned with her head to the wind, her bow a point or two off, in order that she might rise on the waves.

When these measures had been taken, it seemed to me that the wind just tried how hard it could blow; and to do it justice, I must say, that it blew much harder than I had ever before thought it could. Wave after wave—every successive one seeming to run higher and higher—struck the ship, which was continually trembling, and straining, and “working,” as though it might at any moment break to splinters.

Ah, I began to realize that a storm at sea is no luxury! Reader, if you have not seen one, you are fortunate. If you ever start on a voyage, pray earnestly for smooth weather, and if your prayers are answered be very thankful.

I retired to my room at last, and “turned in.” That is the nautical phrase for “going to bed.” You never hear a sailor say he will “go to bed.” He never “goes to bed.” Such an expression would sound very odd at sea. “Turn in,” is the proper term there. If a sailor should hear a man talk about “going to bed,” he would think that man had actually never been out of sight of land in his life.

I “turned in,” and slept. When I awoke again, the ship was tumbling about so that I wondered I had not been pitched out of my berth. Seeing one of the mates pass through the cabin, I accosted him with—

“How is it, without?”

“Blowing a regular gale,” he replied.

“What time is it?”

“Seven bells.”

At sea, they never say eight, nine, ten, eleven, or half-past eleven o’clock. There is a large bell at the forecastle, which is tapped every half-hour. At half-past twelve, it receives one tap; which is called “one bell.” At one o’clock, it is tapped twice: that is, “two bells.” At half-past one, it is tapped three times: that is “three bells;” and so on, till four o’clock, which time is “eight bells.” Then at half-past four “one bell” is struck again; at five o’clock, “two bells;” and so on, up to eight o’clock, which is “eight bells,” again. Commencing at half-past eight, “one bell” is again sounded, “two bells” at nine; and so on till twelve, when “eight bells” is reached once more. So, when the mate told me it was “seven bells,” it will be perceived that it was half-past eleven.

I tried to sleep again, and succeeded. How long I slept, I could not tell; but when I awoke again, the vessel was tossing about fearfully, and the waves dashing over her fore and aft, with a fierceness that threatened to burst her to pieces. But the wind had suddenly lulled. Not a breath of air was stirring; the lower main top-sail was flapping idly about; they had lost control of the ship, because she would no longer steer when the wind ceased; and so, falling fairly into the trough of the sea, she could not struggle up over the billows; and there she lay at the mercy of the waves, being buffeted by them without any mercy at all.

It was indeed a perilous time. The captain, with his many years of experience at sea, knew our danger; but what could be done? Should this state of things continue long, the ship must inevitably be beaten to pieces. All hands had been called on deck; and I got out of my bunk and struggled to the cabin-door. I opened it a little way, but a fearful sea swept over and dashed it shut in my face. I could hear the voice of the captain giving hurried commands to the sailors who were at work securing the rigging. The shrouds were growing slack, and it was every minute expected that the masts would be carried away.

No breeze came; and probably the angry sea would have crushed us down then and there, but that the clouds gathered thickly over, and a heavy rain came pattering upon the agitated waters—a very unusual accompaniment of a north-west wind.

It may be wondered, by the uninitiated, how a heavy shower of rain could help us. It is not generally known that rain has a soothing effect on the angry sea. Yet, such is the case. No matter how fiercely the waves are running, let the wind lull, and a brisk rain of an hour will take all the rough edge off them. It is the dashing and breaking waves that sailors dread. A regular swelling wave, no matter how high it towers, will do no harm, as a vessel will rise with it, and ride lightly over.

This rain of twenty-five or thirty minutes, so far soothed the turbulent waves as to place us out of immediate danger; and not long after, the wind sprung up again, command of the ship was recovered, and so the night passed—and the morning of Sunday, the seventeenth of March, St. Patrick’s Day, dawned upon the wide ocean.

The wind was still blowing freshly, but the sky was clear, the sun shining brightly, and the waves of the sea rolling within the pale of moderation. They still washed the deck at intervals, but I had got used to that, for the deck had scarcely been free from the briny water since the middle of the previous day. The officers and sailors all wore high rubber boots, and oil-cloth hats and clothes. But still, the water dashed over them so violently, that they were wet to the skin all the time. If any one ever asks you, dear reader, whether a sailor’s life is a pleasant one or not, say “No!”

A strong breeze blew all day, and as night approached, it increased to a gale again. I had hoped the storm was over; but a storm at sea seldom subsides entirely within twenty-four hours.

What we had experienced on Saturday night, was not to be compared with the terrors of that memorable Sunday night. I have suffered much, and undergone much danger in my time, but I never, either before or since, passed such a terrible night.

The gale grew fierce again—fiercer even than before—and the lofty waves thundered over us so, that much of the time it was difficult to determine whether we were still floating or not.

But the most fearful time was about midnight. Light clouds were hurrying over, driven by the mighty wind, while, at intervals, portions of the sky grew clear, and the moon shone down upon us. It was an odd sight—such an awful tempest seen in the moonlight. The wind blew with such violence that the ship was nearly the whole time on her beam-ends, that is, lying over on her side. At intervals she would struggle up for a moment, but the fierce blast would soon hurl her over again. On one occasion, while she stood up for a moment, the pumps were sounded, and the captain soon after called out,

“Starboard watch to the pumps!”

The fact was, the ship was found to be leaking badly, and the hold already contained about four-and-a-half feet of water! One of the mates informed me of this. I had requested him to be frank with me, and to let me know the full extent of any danger; stating, that if it became necessary for us to die, I would do my share of it with as good a grace as possible under the circumstances.

The crew of a vessel is divided into two watches—one called the Starboard, and the other the Port. The port watch is commanded by the first mate, and the starboard by the second. [The port side of a ship is the left-hand side, the starboard the right.] While the starboard watch worked most energetically at the pumps, the port watch went aft with the captain and first mate, and proceeded to heave cargo overboard.

All that was cared for now was to save our lives, and to do that, the ship must be kept afloat. What cared we now for stores of wealth! The wealth of the whole world would not have been more highly regarded than an old rusty nail! What cared I for my trunk, my clothes, my books, money, papers, manuscripts, and little valuable and favorite trinkets! I could have seen them all, and a million times more, swept overboard into the dashing sea, without giving them another thought.

How faithfully those sailors worked! both at the pumps, and at the after-hatch, where the valuable cargo was being dashed from the ship, as though a sacrifice to appease the wrath of the billows! How quickly and submissively they sprung to execute every slight command! There was no tardiness now. They were working for dear life, and it was only necessary for them to know what to do. The commands of the officers were merely instructions. There was no cursing the sailors by the officers. [As for the captain, he seldom swore at the sailors; but the mates could do so, in mild weather, with a skill that no reasonable person could impeach.]

There was no longer any distinction between officers and men. All appeared equal. All labored for a common end. Death, which lays every one low, with an impartial hand, was apparently near us, and we were comrades now. Kings and emperors, had they been aboard that seemingly doomed ship, must have felt that they were only men!

I remained at the cabin door, most of the time, watching, at times—as the receding sea would allow me to open the door a little way—the second mate, Mr. Gorham, and his watch, working at the pumps, and the phosphorescent sparks chasing each other over the deck and out at the ports and scuppers. I could also see long lines of gleaming phosphorus on the crests of the waves far out upon the dreadful sea.

The steward, who had been helping at the pumps, made his way into the cabin for some purpose, and said to me,

“Passenger, don’t you think we’re gone?”

His voice indicated that he had already abandoned all hope.

“Things look rather gloomy,” I replied.

“Well,” he rejoined, “we have but once to die. If we go down, it will soon be over; we won’t suffer long.”

This was all the consolation any of us had. The water in the hold did not decrease—the storm raged with unabated fury—and the question now, was not, “Shall we go down?” but, “How soon?” It seemed but a question of time. If we had a spark of hope left, it was merely as one compared with one hundred. The mate told me it was possible the ship could be kept afloat till morning, and that then it was possible some vessel might be in sight and come to our assistance. But these vague possibilities were worse than no hope at all. They were too tantalizing. I should really have felt better if I had known, beyond a doubt, that we should go down in ten minutes.

Still, it is natural for man to cling to any hope that is held out to him, however slight. Probably, hope, faint as it was, saved us on this occasion. Had all given up, and sat down, with the conviction that we were lost—although no one on board was really of any other opinion—the ship would have filled in an hour, and we must have gone down to our dismal graves in the depths of the Gulf Stream.

In this awful extremity, I could not help remembering certain verses from Byron’s “Don Juan” which were very applicable to the occasion. I quote them:

The night passed—I scarcely know how—and, contrary to our anticipation, morning found us still afloat. The storm was yet raging, and the sailors were still busy pumping and heaving cargo overboard. I took my position at the cabin door again, standing in water six or eight inches deep—for the water had made its way into the cabin, where my trunk was

leisurely soaking. I heard the first mate tell one of the sailors to climb up to the mast-head and keep a look out for a vessel. Shortly afterward he came to the door, held it a little way open and said:

“Mr. Smith, just glance out! There is the wildest sight I ever saw, during all my experience at sea!” And he pointed to windward.

I looked; but how shall I describe that sublime and awful picture! The sun was shining brightly, the wind blowing so fiercely that it shattered the green waves, lifted up the waters bodily and dispersed them into a thick spray, so that I could not discern where sea and sky met. The next moment we were enveloped in such a cloud that we could not see thirty yards around us; the heavens grew black and it began to look like the dusk of evening. A minute later, the clouds had swept over, and the bright sun burst once more upon that scene of fearful grandeur. Never did the god of day shed light on a wilder picture! It was grand—majestically grand—awfully grand, beyond the expression of human tongue! Notwithstanding our prospect of speedy death, I was lost and swallowed up in momentary admiration. How vividly came to my mind, as I stood there gazing on the tempestuous scene, those sublime words from the one-hundred-and-seventh Psalm—words that I had never before properly appreciated—

“They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters;

“These see the works of the Lord, and his wonders in the deep.

“For he commandeth, and raiseth the stormy wind, which lifteth up the waves thereof.

“They mount up to the heaven, they go down again to the depths; their soul is melted because of trouble.

“They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, and are at their wit’s end.”

Presently the whole wild picture was again wrapped in gloom, and I was only conscious of the thunder of the waves beating over the ship, of the howling wind and dashing, blinding spray; a moment of gloom: then the clouds were dashed away by the wind, the sun burst out and the wild day shone round again.

We were in the Gulf Stream, which is of a warmer temperature than the other waters of the Atlantic in the same latitude; and the cooler wind seemed to grasp the water up and dash it into the sky; so that, at times, as the spray mounted up and formed in clouds, the sea and sky appeared to leave their places, rushing about through space and commingling in unutterable confusion.

In the midst of all this, how frail did our ship seem!—so frail, that I fancied it lived only because the battling elements did not deign to notice it, or think it worth their while to crush it, as they might have done with a breath!

But now, a beam of hope dawned on us; and it could be seen shining on the faces of all. Every countenance was radiant with it. There was, at last, after eight hours of constant pumping, a perceptible decrease of water in the hold. Sixty or seventy tons of cargo had been thrown from the after part of the ship; the carpenter had gone down and succeeded in patching up one of the rifts: and, to our joy, it was found that the pumps were now capable of throwing the water out a little faster than it ran in. Although the gale was still blowing, and many planks had been torn from the bulwarks by the waves, imminent death no longer threatened us, and we felt comparatively happy.

All that day, (Monday,) that night, and a portion of the following day, the storm raged. But on Tuesday afternoon it gradually lulled, and on Wednesday morning the sun smiled cheerfully on a nearly smooth sea. A slight breeze was blowing, the sky was clear and blue, the air perfectly charming; and I began to forget the terrors and dangers of the storm through which we had passed. After all, now, it was pleasant to be at sea.

Of course, such a thing as proceeding on a voyage of fifteen thousand miles was not to be thought of; and the captain put back for New York, which was now about seven hundred miles distant, as we had drifted a long way during the north-west gale.

That beautiful morning, as I went up on the after deck—a deck, usually called the poop deck, which surrounds the cabin, and is raised about three or four feet above the main deck—I met the captain walking to and fro, and he said:

“Well, Mr. Smith, taking into consideration our recent gale, what do you think of the man who wrote ‘A life on the ocean wave?’”

“One of two things,” I replied: “he was either a lunatic, or else never saw the ‘ocean wave.’ In the latter case, he was, at least, a fool.”

“That,” rejoined the captain, “reminds me of a certain Doctor—a friend of mine—who once took a voyage with me. He was much elated with the idea of going to sea, and, as we sailed from port, and he gazed out upon the endless expanse before us, he was perfectly enraptured. But, by and by, as we got out where it was a little rough, he became sea-sick—terribly so—and I found him aft, in a little while, hanging over the bulwark, and ready to turn inside out. O, wasn’t he sick! ‘Hallo, Doctor,’ said I; ‘not sick, I hope?’ ‘O, Lordy! yes,’ said he. ‘O, dear!’ Then I thought his stomach itself would come up. ‘What do you now think of the man who wrote, “A life on the ocean wave?” I was cruel enough to ask. ‘Think!’ said he. ‘I think—bawk!—think he was a d——d fool! Bawk! Bawk! O, Lordy, O!’”