It was the first time the young sailor had been left in sole charge of the vessel, and he realized the responsibility of his position. Still, owing to his father’s teachings and careful training, he felt quite competent to manage her, so long as no especial danger threatened. He also comforted himself with the thought that there was not the slightest chance of anything happening in the short time before he should be relieved. While thus thinking, and at the same time keeping a sharp watch of the sails, the compass, and the dog-vane that, fluttering from the mainmast-head, denoted the direction of the wind, he was startled by a curious humming sound in the air above him. It was a weird, uncanny sound, unlike anything he had ever before heard, and it filled him with a strange fear. He was just about to call the men in the cabin, when suddenly there came a roar and a shriek above his head. Then the little circular tornado, directly in whose track the unfortunate _Curlew_ happened to be, struck her such a terrible blow that she was powerless to resist it. In an instant she was knocked down and thrown on her beam ends. The white sails, that had soared aloft so gracefully, and offered so tempting a mark for the spinning whirlwind, now lay flat in the water, heavily soaking and holding the schooner down. Breeze had spun the wheel with all his might, and thrown the helm hard down, in the hope of bringing her up into the wind; but the blow had been too sudden and too heavy. The rudder no longer controlled her, and she lay as helpless as though waterlogged, held down by that terrible dragging weight of top-hamper. As she went over, one man had struggled up from the forecastle and been instantly buried in the sea beneath the heavy canvas of the foresail. Breeze knew that the reason no more came was that a torrent of water was rushing with resistless force through the narrow opening. Beneath him he could hear the smothered cries and struggles of the prisoners in the cabin. In a few minutes more the vessel would sink, and all within her would be miserably drowned. Their only hope was in him. What could he do? What could he do? Standing on the weather side of the wheel when the schooner was struck, he had saved himself from going overboard by clinging to it. Now he scrambled to the upper side of the house, and holding on to the weather-rail, began to hack desperately at the lanyards of the main rigging with his sheath-knife. If only the masts would break off and relieve the vessel of that awful weight of soaked canvas, she might right herself. One after another the lanyards snap like strained harpstrings. There! the rigging has gone and the mast cracks. Now for the fore rigging! How he reached it the boy never knew; in fact he afterwards had very little recollection of what he did amid the terrible excitement of those two minutes; but he did reach and cut it.