The northwester still continued, with a clear blue sky, without a cloud overhead by day, and a bright, cold moon by night. It blew so hard for the three succeeding days, that we could not carry more than close-reefed topsails to it, and a reefed foresail. Indeed, toward six bells in the forenoon watch of the third day, it came thundering down with such violence, and the sea increased so much, that we had to hand the fore-topsail. This was by no means an easy job. “Ease her a bit,” said the first lieutenant,—“there,—shake the wind out of her sails for a moment, until the men get the canvas in.” Whirl, a poor fellow pitched off the lee foreyard-arm into the sea. “Up with the helm—heave him the bight of a rope.” We kept away, but all was confusion, until an American midshipman, one of the prisoners on board, hove the bight of a rope at him. The man got it under his arms, and after hauling him along for a hundred yards at the least—and one may judge of the velocity with which he was dragged through the water, by the fact that it took the united strain of ten powerful men to get him in—he was brought safely on board, pale and blue, when we found that the running of the rope had crushed in his broad chest, below his arms, as if it had been a girl’s waist, indenting the very muscles of it and of his back half an inch deep. He had to be bled before he could breathe, and it was an hour before the circulation could be restored, by the joint exertions of the surgeon and gun-room steward, chafing him with spirits and camphor, after he had been stripped and stowed away between the blankets in his hammock.
The same afternoon we fell in with a small prize to the squadron in the Chesapeake, a dismantled schooner, manned by a prize crew of a midshipman and six men. She had a signal of distress, an American ensign, with the union down, hoisted on the jury-mast, across which there was rigged a solitary lug-sail. It was blowing so hard that we had some difficulty in boarding her, when we found that she was a Baltimore pilot-boat-built schooner, of about seventy tons burden, laden with flour, and bound for Bermuda. But three days before, in a sudden squall, they had carried away both masts short by the board, and the only spar which they had been able to rig was a spare topmast, which they had jammed into one of the pumps,—fortunately she was as tight as a bottle,—and stayed it the best way they could. The captain offered to take the little fellow who had charge of her, and his crew and cargo on board, and then scuttle her; but no—all he wanted was a cask of water and some biscuit; and having had a glass of grog, he trundled over the side again, and returned to his desolate command. However, he afterwards brought his prize safe into Bermuda.
The weather still continued very rough, but we saw nothing until the second evening after this. The forenoon had been even more boisterous than any of the preceding, and we were all fagged enough with “Make sail,” and “Shorten sail,” and “All hands,” the whole day through; and as the night fell, I found myself, for the fourth time, in the maintop. The men had just lain in from the maintopsail-yard, when we heard the watch called on deck,—“Starboard watch, ahoy!”—which was a cheery sound to us of the larboard, who were thus released from duty on deck and allowed to go below.
The men were scrambling down the weather shrouds, and I was preparing to follow them, when I jammed my left foot in the grating of the top, and capsized on my nose. I had been up nearly the whole of the previous night, and on deck the whole of the day, and actively employed too, as during the greater part of it it blew a gale. I stooped down in some pain, to see what had bolted me to the grating; but I had no sooner extricated my foot than, overworked and overfatigued as I was, I fell over in the soundest sleep that ever I have enjoyed before or since, the back of my neck resting on a coil of rope, so that my head hung down within it.
The rain all this time was beating on me, and I was drenched to the skin. I must have slept for four hours or so, when I was awakened by a rough thump on the side from the stumbling foot of the captain of the top, the word having been passed to shake a reef out of the topsails, the wind having rather suddenly gone down. It was done; and now broad awake, I determined not to be caught napping again, so I descended and swung myself in on deck out of the main rigging, just as Mr. Treenail was mustering the crew at eight bells. When I landed on the quarterdeck, there he stood abaft the binnacle, with the light shining on his face, his glazed hat glancing, and the raindrops sparkling at the brim of it. He had noticed me the moment I descended.
“Heyday, Master Cringle, you are surely out of your watch. Why, what are you doing here, eh?”
I stepped up to him and told him the truth, that, being over-fatigued, I had fallen asleep in the top.
“Well, well, boy,” said he, “never mind, go below, and turn in; if you don’t take your rest, you never will be a sailor.
“But what do you see aloft?” glancing his eye upwards, and all the crew on deck, as I passed them, looked anxiously up also amongst the rigging, as if wondering what I saw there, for I had been so chilled in my snooze, that my neck, from resting in the cold on the coil of rope, had become stiffened and rigid to an intolerable degree; and although, when I first came on deck, I had, by a strong exertion, brought my caput to its proper bearings, yet the moment I was dismissed by my proper officer, I for my own comfort was glad to conform to the contraction of the muscle, whereby I once more staved along the deck, glowering up into the heavens as if I had seen some wonderful sight there.
“What do you see aloft?” repeated Mr. Treenail, while the crew, greatly puzzled, continued to follow my eyes, as they thought, and to stare up into the rigging.