It was a dark, lowering morning, the desolate sea still threateningly rough, the heavy clouds hanging low.  The Romping Betsy was hove to, under bare poles, a bit of the jib alone showing, with decks and spars exhibiting evidence of the terrific struggle to keep afloat.  I never witnessed wilder pitching on any vessel, but the fresh air brought new life to the wretches about me, and a species of cheerfulness was quickly manifested.  Bad as the food was we ate it gladly, nor did the memory of the dead, already laid out on the main deck, long depress us.  Why should we mourn for them?  We scarcely knew any among them by name, and, facing the uncertainty of our own fate, each man secretly felt that these had possibly found the easier way.  Our own misery was now greater than theirs.  So we hung on to whatever would help us to keep erect, and ate the food given us like famished animals.  Rough and threatening as the surroundings still were, I was seaman enough to realize that the backbone of the storm had broken, and so rejoiced when the skipper ordered sail set.  In a few moments the brig was once again headed on a westerly course, and riding the heavy seas much more steadily.

We were permitted to remain on deck scarcely more than an hour, and during that time only a very few passengers made their appearance aft.  Although watching eagerly I perceived no flutter of a skirt in the wind, but the Spanish looking man emerged from below, and clung to the rail for several minutes before we were ordered from deck.  He spoke with the Captain, pointing and gesticulating, and the few detached words blown to me on the wind were sufficient to convince me that the fellow knew ships and the sea.  I had thought him a mere dandy, but now saw in him harder stuff, even getting close enough to learn that he had visited America before, and possessed knowledge of its shores and currents.  Ay, and he spoke English well, with never pause for a word, even to terms of seamanship a bit obscure.

The next few days, while uneventful, sufficed to make our discipline complete, obedience being roughly enforced by blows and oaths.  At first a spirit of resistance flamed high, but the truly desperate among us were few, and without leadership, while the majority were already thoroughly cowed by months of imprisonment.  Left to themselves the more reckless and criminal were soon obliged to yield to force, so that nothing more serious resulted than loud talk and threats.  The hatch above remained open, but carefully guarded night and day, while we were permitted on deck for air and exercise only in squads of ten, two hours out of every twenty-four.  This alone served to break the dread monotony of the voyage, for while we almost constantly encountered baffling head winds, no other storm of any magnitude obstructed our passage.  The brig carried heavy canvas, and the skipper loaded her with all she could bear, but at that she was a slow sailor, dipping so deeply in a seaway as to ship