"Poor fellows! they’re long since gone, then. Well, as I was saying, we were all ready to start for home the day before Christmas, when there came on such a gale of wind as I’ve rarely seen in these latitudes. By night it was a hurricane, and such a sea was running that it seemed as though each wave must swallow the schooner as it came rushing-down on her. We were hove-to under a three-reefed foresail, and the riding-sail with a bag-reef tied in it. About nine o’clock in the evening, I’d been on deck so long, and was so drenched and chilled, that I stepped into the forecastle to get a cup of coffee. There was one other man there, poor Dick Simonds--you remember him, Breeze--and the cook. The rest were either on deck or in the cabin. "I had just braced myself between the foremast and the edge of a bunk, and was reaching for the coffee, when the vessel seemed to give a great leap in the air. When she dropped it was on her beam ends, and I could feel her settling down. The cook got out someway, how I don’t know; but Dick was met by the water pouring in the companion-way. He pulled the slide to keep it out, thinking she’d right in a minute if she didn’t fill first. "At the first shock I was so braced that, lying on my back as I was, I couldn’t move, and when I did get right side up, there we were, Dick and I, shut up like two rats in a trap, and the schooner was bottom side up. "Dick stood it as long as he could, which I suppose was some time the next day. By then it had got so quiet overhead that we judged the storm had gone down. At the same time we knew our air must be escaping, for we could feel the water slowly but surely rising in the forecastle. The rats were becoming troublesome, too, and swarming over us. Though we couldn’t see them, we managed to catch and drown quite a number of them. "At last Dick said he couldn’t die but once anyhow, and that he was going to make a try for one more breath of fresh air and one more sight of God’s blessed daylight. He succeeded in smashing off the companion-way slide, and a faint light came in through the water, so we knew it was day. I didn’t remember till afterwards that it was Christmas-day, and I’m glad I didn’t.