On board the ship, also, matters had considerably improved, only two men being required at the helm in place of four, for the vessel was ever so much more easy to steer; and, I could see preparations being made in the waist for bending a new main-topsail and mizzen staysail in place of those that had been blown away when we were in the vortex of the hurricane.
It was a difficult job getting the remains of the old main-topsail off the yard, the wind blowing still with great force and the men having to hold on with all their might. But, after an hour’s labour, the task was accomplished, and then the new piece of canvas was sent up into the top by the halliards, where, after being bent and close-reefed, it was sheeted home and the yard hoisted up again, spreading the sail.
The mizzen staysail followed suit; and then, seeing that the ship bore the pressure pretty well, Captain Miles ordered the fore-topmast staysail to be hoisted. This brought the Josephine more up to the wind, the vessel now sailing with it about a couple of points abaft the beam.
She heeled over tremendously, burying all the lee bulwarks under water, with the sea rushing along her channels like a mill-race; but, she held to it bravely, and we all congratulated ourselves on having weathered the storm and carried out Captain Miles’s boast of making the gale serve his purpose, thus turning a foul wind into a fair one.
Towards mid-day, the captain took an observation, which amply corroborated his lunars of the previous evening, we being found to be in 32 degrees North latitude and 40 degrees West longitude, the slight difference between this and his former reckoning being due to the distance we had run during the night.
The wind still held up, however, and although we were carrying more canvas than we really ought to have had on the ship in such a gale, Captain Miles was just thinking of setting the spanker and bending a new fore-topsail, when, as if it had been all at once shut off from its source, the strong north-western wind in a moment ceased to blow.
At this time there was not a single cloud on the horizon anywhere, the sky being absolutely clear and beautifully blue; but I noticed something like a white wall of water on our port bow advancing towards the Josephine.
The sight resembled an enormous wave raised up to twenty times the height of those in our more immediate vicinity.
“Look, Mr Marline!” I cried. “What is that there to the left?”
He glanced where I pointed, and so did Jackson, the latter singing out the moment he caught sight of the wave to the two men at the wheel, who were Davis and a German sailor, “Down with the helm—sharp!”