"Now, then, what ye crowdin' up like that for? Spread out! How can you haul if you ain't got room?" holloaed the bosun. "Up with her, boys, lively now, lively!" he cried sharply. "Oh ho! Two-block her!" Suddenly from aft came the old man's voice, rising above the roar of the gathering gale. "Belay all that! Git them t'gallant-s'ls in, Mr. Davis, quick!" "Aye, aye, sir!" There was no time to lose. A nasty-looking heavy black cloud with torn, ragged edges was racing up to windward. "There's dirt in that," said the bosun to Jack, as they manned the t'gallant clew-lines. "Haul, yew mutton-faced haymakers, haul!" bellowed the mate. The ship resounded with the cries of the men and the thunder of the flogging canvas. As the _Higgins_ lay over, it was almost impossible to stand on her gleaming wet decks, and to leeward the men on the spilling-lines were up to their waists in broken water. "Sweat her up, my barnacle-backs!" yelled the bosun encouragingly, standing out a very tower of strength in the midst of the panting, struggling men. "There's snow coming," jerked out the rover to Broncho, as he sniffed to windward. First the mizzen topgallant-sail was clewed up and four light men were sent aloft to make it fast; but it was touch and go whether the fore and main topgallant-sails would be clewed up before the approaching squall was upon them, and the men had only just got out on to the footropes and started to fist the sails when it swooped down upon the ship with a furious roar, accompanied by a mixture of snow, hail, and sleet. The driving snow thickened the darkness into the density of black mud. The sleet spattered and hissed and the hail rattled, pounding on the wet decks like dancing pebbles and beating with blood-drawing force upon the grim, weather-worn faces. Upon the yards, headed by the bosun, the men fought furiously with the maddened canvas. Crooked fingers scratched despairingly at the rigid curves, bleeding knuckles struck ragingly at the stubborn, iron-like folds. Wildly-shouted commands, cut off by the hooting wind, flew to leeward unheard. The face of the bosun at the bunt of the main topgallant-sail grew twisted and distorted with grimaces in his vain attempts to make the men understand, unseen in the smothering darkness of the squall even by the man next him; vainly he waved and gesticulated; again and again his mouth shaped the words: "All together! All together!" The footropes swung violently as the savage sail jerked them, in a vain attempt to dislodge the struggling men. The _Higgins_ lay over and over and yet over under the strength of the blast; the covering-board disappeared, then the dead-eyes and the topgallant rail; the sheerpoles were dipped, the fair-leads smothered, and a hissing cauldron of seething white water boiled up to and over the hatch tarpaulins.