I Stood On The
Forecastle, Looking At The Seas, Which Were Rolling High, As Far
As The Eye Could Reach, Their Tops White With Foam, And The Body
Of Them Of A Deep Indigo Blue, Reflecting The Bright Rays Of The
Sun.
Our ship rose slowly over a few of the largest of them,
until one immense fellow came rolling on, threatening to cover
her, and which I was sailor enough to know, by "the feeling of
her" under my feet, she would not rise over.
I sprang upon the
knight-heads, and seizing hold of the fore-stay with my hands,
drew myself upon it. My feet were just off the stanchion, when
she struck fairly into the middle of the sea, and it washed her
fore and aft, burying her in the water. As soon as she rose out
of it, I looked aft, and everything forward of the main-mast,
except the long-boat, which was griped and double-lashed down
to the ring-bolts, was swept off clear. The galley, the pig-sty,
the hen-coop, and a large sheep-pen which had been built upon the
forehatch, were all gone, in the twinkling of an eye - leaving the
deck as clean as a chin new-reaped - and not a stick left, to show
where they had stood. In the scuppers lay the galley, bottom up,
and a few boards floating about, the wreck of the sheep-pen, - and
half a dozen miserable sheep floating among them, wet through,
and not a little frightened at the sudden change that had come
upon them.
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