By noon the weather abated somewhat, and we got the ship under fore and mizzen lower tops'ls, and close reefed main upper tops'l. Before nightfall we had sent down what remained of the main lower tops'l, and bent a new sail. That afternoon we experienced an adventure fraught with much excitement to us of the port watch. The jib having worked loose from the gaskets, by constant dipping into the sea, as the ragged crests of blue water buried the bowsprit and jibboom, six of us were ordered out to secure the sail by passing a three-inch manila line around the sail and boom. Brenden, Scouse, Frenchy and I were on the weather side, and Joe and Martin went out on the boom to leeward. The job was almost finished, two seas had already drenched us, and we were chilled with the dip in the cold water, when the ship rose to a heavy roller, her bow lifted high into the eye of the wind, and then plunged down into the deep trough between two seas. The momentum was so great that she failed to rise quickly enough, and her jibboom stabbed right into the heart of the onrushing wall of cold blue water, regardless of the half dozen luckless wretches clinging to the furled canvas with all their might. The great sea went on over us, thundering down on the fo'c'sle head, and rushing aft along the deck in a noisy white cataract of foam. When she shook free we were left clinging to the jibboom like drowned rats, that is, all of us but Joe. Aft on the poop, the mate heard our cries, and, springing to the lee rail, he yanked a bight of line from a pin and hove it overboard, catching Joe just in time as he rose close along side. When she heeled to leeward, ready hands hauled the half-drowned Joe on board. Captain Nichols had come up on the first cry, and taking Joe into the cabin, he poured out a liberal hooker of whiskey from the medicine chest. The funny part of the whole thing was that Joe was more thankful for the drink than for his escape from certain death, for we never could have lowered a boat in that sea. We got a watch below that night, and the cook managed to heat some coffee, but cold salt beef and hard tack were all that the kids contained when we went below for supper. Wrapped in our damp clothes we managed to peg in a few hours of necessary sleep. Life, for a week afterward, was not worth living, unless one held some latent strain of the old berserker flowing through his veins. It was a fight, and the elements charged us and flanked us in midnight fury, increasingly cold as we edged farther to the south in our attempt to round the meridian of Cape Horn.