Few needed the warning. When for a short time all was again clear we looked round anxiously to ascertain that none of our shipmates had been carried overboard. By next to a miracle all were safe. The carpenter and his crew were called aft to secure the stern ports and to barricade the poop with all the planks and shores they could employ, but to little purpose. The huge dark-green seas, like vast mountains upheaved from their base by some Titan's power, came following up after us, roaring and hissing and curling over as if in eager haste to overwhelm us, their crests one mass of boiling foam. As I stood aft I could not help admiring the bold sweep of the curve they made from our rudder-post upwards, as high it seemed as our mizen-top, the whole a bank of solid water, with weight and force enough in it to send to the bottom the stoutest line-of-battle-ship in the Navy. The taste we got occasionally of their crests, as they now and then caught us up, was quite enough to make me pray that we might not have the full flavour of their whole body. No one on board had thought all this time of the Chatham, and when at length we did look out for her she was nowhere to be seen. It was probable that she was in as bad a plight as ourselves, so that neither of us could have rendered the other assistance. Hour after hour passed without any improvement in the weather. Every instant we expected something worse to befall us. To remain below was out of the question, as at any moment we might be wanted. To keep the deck was scarcely possible, without the risk of being frozen to death or carried overboard. Matters were bad enough in the daytime, but when darkness came on and we went plunging away amid showers of snow and sleet and bitter frost, with the cold north-west wind howling after us, I thought of what the friends of some of our delicately-nurtured young gentlemen would say if they could see us, and, for my own part, often wished myself by the quiet fireside of the humblest cottage in old England. We did our best to look after little Harry Sumner, and got him stowed away carefully in his hammock, where we told him to lie still till he was wanted. There was no object in allowing him to remain on deck, where he could not be of use and was very likely to get injured. "I'll do as you tell me, Mr Hurry," said he. "But I'm not afraid of the sea or the wind--if it were not for the bitter, bitter cold I would rather be on deck, I would indeed." "You're a brave little fellow, Harry, but we must take care of you for some nobler work, and then I've no doubt you'll give a good account of yourself," said I. "So now go to sleep and try and get warm." Of my own immediate follower and protege, Tom Rockets, I have said nothing since we came to sea. By the courage and activity he displayed on the present occasion he showed that he was made of the right stuff to form a first-rate seaman, and I had no reason to be ashamed of him.