We were drifting to leeward at a tremendous rate; Kuh-i-Mubarak was below the horizon, and the gale showed no signs of lessening. "If this goes on much longer we’ll find ourselves blown a hundred miles out to sea," Dobson roared in my ear. "We’d best cut away the mast. She’ll ride more easy and won’t drift so quick." I looked to wind’ard. Even though the gale howled as fiercely as ever, the sky showed signs of clearing; the line of the horizon was certainly clearer than it had been the last time I looked. I knew that these gales often died down as quickly as they rose; the fiercer they were the quicker over, and I still hoped to sail into Jask. I even began to think how best to rig a "jury" rudder. So I shook my head at Dobson, and determined to keep the mast unless things became worse, and we hung on, dodging the waves and the block on that main sheet. Presently the sail began to give way, great rents showing in it when it lifted, spreading and ripping, and flying to leeward in long streamers, which one by one tore themselves clear and spun madly down wind. As each strip parted it eased the strain, until, after a time, the dhow came on a more even keel, and in the hollows of the seas wallowed less deeply. Somehow or other we felt that the worst was over, and began to look round us and shift into more comfortable positions. The old nakhoda—half-drowned he was—began to recover consciousness, and the Arabs ventured a little farther aft, crouching for shelter under the weather gunwale. There was now no sign whatever of the _Bunder Abbas_—we had drifted out of sight of her long ago—but the sky overhead was clearing; large blue patches showed between the clouds, and though the gale still shrieked down on us with unabated violence, our spirits rose considerably. The edge of civilization! Yes, I was there, with a vengeance! What an extraordinary change seven weeks had made, after my long seven years in home waters! I could not help picturing the Channel Squadron anchored, as I last saw it, under Portland Bill, and wondered whether it was still there, thanking Heaven that I was not keeping a monotonous day "on". To make things still more comfortable for us, that big wooden block, in a last furious endeavour to dash our brains out, banged itself to pieces against a big wooden bollard on the poop, so we had no longer to dodge it. But to level up things we began to realize how horribly thirsty we were. We found some water, or rather Jaffa found some, under the poop, in an old kerosene tin. It tasted horrid, and was so brackish that it did little to quench our thirst. My head, too, now that I had not so much to think about, began to throb and ache. Wiggins began to complain of his side. "We’ve got to stick it out, that’s all," I called to them; and Dobson smiled cheerily, shouting back that he thought "this ’ere shamel wouldn’t last long; it was too blooming strong at the start."