"Land!--land, by G--d!" shouted he, and from the lee of the round-house it came more like a shriek than a shout--"I'll be there though a thousand mutineers--" His eye was like a wild beast's. That moment the truth glanced across me--this was the _green leaf_, no doubt, the Scotch mate talked so mysteriously of. The man was mad! The land-fever was upon him, as I'd seen it before in men long off the African coast; and he stood eyeing me with one foot hard stamped before him. 'Twas no use trying to be heard, and the desperation of the moment gave me a thought of the sole thing to do. I took off my hat in the light of the binnacle, bowed, and looked him straight in the face with a smile--when his eye wavered, he slowly lowered his pistol, then _laughed_, waving his hand towards the land to leeward, as if, but for the gale, you'd have heard him cheer. At the instant I sprang behind him with the slack of a rope, and grappled his arms fast, though he'd got the furious power of a madman, and, during half a minute, 'twas wrestle for life with me. But the line was round him, arm and leg, and I made it fast, throwing him heavily on the deck, just as one of the mates, with some of the crew, were struggling aft, by help of the belaying-pins, against the hurricane, having caught a glimpse of the thing by the binnacle-light. They looked from me to the captain. The ugly top-man made a sign, as much as to say, knock the fellow down; but the whole lot hung back before the couple of pistol-barrels I handled. The Scotch mate seemed awfully puzzled; and others of the men, who knew from Jacobs what I was, came shoving along, evidently aware what a case we were in. A word to Jacobs served to keep him steering her anxiously, so as to head two or three points more south-east in the _end_, furiously as the wheel jolted. So there we stood, the tornado sweeping sharp as a knife from astern over the poop-deck, with a force that threw any one back if he left go his hold to get near me, and going up like thunder aloft in the sky. Now and then a weaker flare of lightning glittered across the scud; and, black as it was overhead, the horizon to windward was but one jagged white glare, gushing full of broad shifting streaks through the drift of foam and the spray that strove to rise. Our fore-course still held; and I took the helm from Jacobs, that he might go and manage to get a pull taken on the starboard brace, which would not only _slant_ the sail more to the blasts, but give her the better chance to make the sole point of salvation, by helping her steerage when most needed. Jacobs and Westwood together got this done; and all the time I was keeping my eyes fixed anxiously as man can fancy, on the last gleams of the fire ashore, as her head made a fairer line with it; but, by little and little, it went quite out, and all was black--though I had taken its bearings by the compass--and I kept her to that for bare life,