“_Hold on all!_” and as he spoke, the huge volume of waters came tumbling in upon us, sweeping our decks like a whirlwind, hissing, roaring, and foaming along, and making the merchantman quiver in every timber from bulwark to kelson. Not a moveable thing was left. The long boat was swept from the decks like chaff before a hurricane. For an instant the merchantman lay powerless beneath the blow, as if a thunderbolt had stunned her; but gradually recovering from the shock, she shook the waters gallantly from her bows, emerged from the deluge, and rolling her tall masts heavily to starboard, once more breasted the storm. We had been a week at sea without meeting a single sail. During that time we had enjoyed a succession of favorable breezes, until within the last few days, when the gale, which now raged, had overtaken us, and driven us out into the Atlantic, somewhere, as near as we could guess, between the Bermudas and our port of destination. Within the last few hours we had been lying-to, under a close-reefed foresail; but every succeeding wave had seemed to become more dangerous than the last, until it was now evident that our craft could not much longer endure the continued surges which breaking over her bows, threatened momentarily to engulph us. The master stood by my side, holding on to a rope, his weather-beaten countenance drenched with spray, but his keen, anxious eye changing continually from the bow of his craft, to the wild scene around him. “She can’t stand it much longer, Mr. Parker,” said the old man, “many a gale have I weathered in her, but none like this. God help us!” “Meet it with the helm—hold on all,” came faintly from the forecastle, and before the words had whizzed past upon the gale, another mountain wave was hurled in upon us, and I felt myself, the next instant, borne away, as in the arms of a giant, upon its bosom. The rope by which I held had parted. There was a hissing in my ears—a rapid shooting like an arrow—a desperate effort to stay my progress by catching at a rope, I missed—and then I felt myself whirled away astern of the merchantman, my eyes blinded with the spray, my ears ringing with a strange, wild sound, and a feeling of sudden, utter hopelessness at my heart, such as they only can know who have experienced a fate as terrible as mine, at that moment, threatened to be. “A man overboard!” came faintly from the fast-receding ship. “Ahoy!” I shouted. “Hillo—hil—lo—o,” was answered back. “Ahoy—a—a—hoy!” “Throw over that spar.” “Toll the bell that he may know where we are.” “Hillo—hi—il—lo!” “Who is it?” “Bring a lantern here.” “Hil—l—o—o—o—o!” “Can you see him?” “It’s as dark as death.” “God have mercy then upon his soul.”