I shall never forget the group. He was holding on by the mizen-backstay, in a half kneeling position; the youngest woman was beside him in her nightdress, with her long hair hanging lank down and drenched with rain over her deadly pale features, while her fair and taper naked arms were clasped convulsively round his neck, as she hid her face in his bosom. The elder lady was sitting covered with a boat-cloak on the small bench, that ran along the larboard-side of the companion, with one of her arms over the top of it to keep her in her seat, which she seemed to accomplish with great difficulty, as the labouring ship sweltered about on the boiling sea. A sheep, apparently a pet lamb, stood, or rather staggered about, on the deck beside her, every now and then turning up its innocent face and bleating, and trying to poke its head under her cloak. A sea at this moment broke over the starboard quarter of the ship, and drenched all of them, washing aside the skirt of the cloak that covered the oldest of the females, and disclosing, alas, alas! my poor dear little boy, crying in his mother's arms, and stretching and struggling with his little limbs, as if he had slept through it all, until the very moment when the unruly surge washed him in his nest. "Mind your helm," sung out Mr Marline, sharp and suddenly. I turned to look aft from whence the voice came. Heavens, what a sight! A huge green wave was curling its monstrous crest, like revolving wheels of foam, close aboard of us astern, and pursuing us with a hoarse growl, increasing to a roar, like a sea monster rushing on its prey. Lanyard had only time to sing out, "All hands, secure yourselves," when it rolled in over the tafferel, and swept the deck fore and aft, washing boats, hen-coops, spare spars, and every thing that was not part and portion of the solid deck and upperworks, overboard, and submerging us several feet under water. I thought the little Midge's buzzing and stinging were for ever over, and that she never would have risen again; but the buoyant little craft gallantly struggled from under the sea, and rose gaily to the surface like a wild-duck shaking her feathers after a long dive; and having hove-to, we soon made capital weather of it again--her strong bows dancing over the advancing surges, as if in contempt, until they hissed away under foot, like serpents foiled in their attack. It was a fearful sight every now and then to look down from the summit of a gigantic sea, on the frigate and shattered merchantman, as they were tossed to and fro beneath us like objects seen from a hillside; and then to feel yourself _sinking_, and see them _rising_, as you in your turn sank into the trough, until they appeared to hang above you in act to slide down and swamp you, and again to lose sight of them altogether, as a roaring wave rose between us.