In the midst of all this, how frail did our ship seem!—so frail, that I fancied it lived only because the battling elements did not deign to notice it, or think it worth their while to crush it, as they might have done with a breath! But now, a beam of hope dawned on us; and it could be seen shining on the faces of all. Every countenance was radiant with it. There was, at last, after eight hours of constant pumping, a perceptible decrease of water in the hold. Sixty or seventy tons of cargo had been thrown from the after part of the ship; the carpenter had gone down and succeeded in patching up one of the rifts: and, to our joy, it was found that the pumps were now capable of throwing the water out a little faster than it ran in. Although the gale was still blowing, and many planks had been torn from the bulwarks by the waves, imminent death no longer threatened us, and we felt comparatively happy. All that day, (Monday,) that night, and a portion of the following day, the storm raged. But on Tuesday afternoon it gradually lulled, and on Wednesday morning the sun smiled cheerfully on a nearly smooth sea. A slight breeze was blowing, the sky was clear and blue, the air perfectly charming; and I began to forget the terrors and dangers of the storm through which we had passed. After all, now, it was pleasant to be at sea. Of course, such a thing as proceeding on a voyage of fifteen thousand miles was not to be thought of; and the captain put back for New York, which was now about seven hundred miles distant, as we had drifted a long way during the north-west gale. That beautiful morning, as I went up on the after deck—a deck, usually called the poop deck, which surrounds the cabin, and is raised about three or four feet above the main deck—I met the captain walking to and fro, and he said: “Well, Mr. Smith, taking into consideration our recent gale, what do you think of the man who wrote ‘A life on the ocean wave?’” “One of two things,” I replied: “he was either a lunatic, or else never saw the ‘ocean wave.’ In the latter case, he was, at least, a fool.” “That,” rejoined the captain, “reminds me of a certain Doctor—a friend of mine—who once took a voyage with me. He was much elated with the idea of going to sea, and, as we sailed from port, and he gazed out upon the endless expanse before us, he was perfectly enraptured. But, by and by, as we got out where it was a little rough, he became sea-sick—terribly so—and I found him aft, in a little while, hanging over the bulwark, and ready to turn inside out. O, wasn’t he sick! ‘Hallo, Doctor,’ said I; ‘not sick, I hope?’ ‘O, Lordy! yes,’ said he. ‘O, dear!’ Then I thought his stomach itself would come up. ‘What do you now think of the man who wrote, “_A life on the ocean wave_?” I was cruel enough to ask. ‘Think!’ said he. ‘I think—bawk!—think he was a d——d fool! Bawk! Bawk! O, Lordy, O!’” CHAPTER XLII. MORE OF THE DREADFUL SEA.