I had no help for it, so on deck I crawled, where the grey light of morning was streaming from beneath a dark mass of clouds which hung overhead, and a gale was blowing which sent the foam flying from the tops of the seas, deluging us fore and aft. Now the brig was lifted up to the summit of a wave, and now down she sank into the trough of the sea, with a liquid wall on one side which, as it came curling on, looked as if it must inevitably overwhelm her. She was under close-reefed topsails and storm-jib, and two of the best hands were at the helm. Peter was one of them. I managed to climb up to windward, and to hold on by the weather-fore-rigging, where the rest of the crew were collected. I shall never forget the dark, dreary, and terrific scene which the ocean presented to my unaccustomed sight. At first, too, I felt very sick and miserable, and I thought that I would far rather have been starving on shore than going to be drowned, as I fancied, and being tossed about by the rough ocean. Barney, who was on deck before me, abused me as I crawled up near him, and contrived to give me a kick, which, had I let go my hold, as it was calculated to make me do, would probably have been the cause of my immediate destruction. At that moment a huge sea came rolling up towards the brig, topping high above our deck. I saw Peter Poplar and the other man at the helm looking out anxiously at it. They grasped tighter hold of the spokes of the wheel, and planted their feet firmer on the deck. Captain Helfrich and his mates were standing by the main-rigging. "Hold on, hold on for your lives, my men!" he sung out. The crew did not neglect to obey him, and I clung to a rope like a monkey. Most of the passengers were below, sick in their berths. Down came the huge sea upon us like the wall of a city overwhelming its inhabitants. Over our deck it rushed with terrific force. I thought to a certainty that we were sinking. What a horrible noise there was!--wrenching and tearing, and the roar and dashing sound of the waves, and the howling of the wind! All contributed to confuse my senses, so that I forgot altogether where I was. I had an idea, I believe, that the end of the world was come. Still my shipmates did not shriek out, and I was very much surprised to find the brig rise again out of the water, and to see them standing where they were before, employed in shaking the wet off their jackets. The deck of the brig, however, presented a scene of no little confusion and havoc. Part of her weather-bulwarks forward had been stove in, the long-boat on the booms had been almost knocked to pieces, and a considerable portion of the after-part of the lee-bulwarks had been washed away, showing the course the sea had taken over us.