At noon, precisely, away went our fore-top-sail out of the gaskets.  One fastening snapped after another, until the whole sail was adrift.  The tugs that this large sheet of canvass gave upon the spars, as it shook in the wind, threatened to jerk the foremast out of the ship.  They lasted about three minutes, when, after a report almost as loud as that of a small piece of ordnance, the sail split in ribands.  Ten minutes later, our main-top-sail went.  This sail left us as it might be bodily, and I actually thought that a gun of distress was fired near us, by some vessel that was unseen, The bolt-rope was left set; the sheets, earings, and reef points all holding on, the cloth tearing at a single rent around the four sides of the sail.  The scene that followed I scarcely know how to describe.  The torn part of the main-top-sail flew forward, and caught in the after-part of the fore-top, where it stood spread, as one might say, held by the top, cat-harpins, rigging, and other obstacles.  This was the feather to break the camel’s back.  Bolt after bolt of the fore-rigging drew or broke, each parting with a loud report, and away went everything belonging to the foremast over the bows, from the deck up.  The main-top-mast was dragged down by this fearful pull, and that brought the mizen-top-gallant-mast after it.  The pitching of so much hamper under the bows of the ship, while her after-masts stood, threw the stern round, in spite of the manner in which Marble steered; and the ship broached-to.  In doing this, the sea made a fair breach over her, sweeping the deck of even the launch and camboose, and carrying all the lee-bulwarks, in the waist, with them.  Neb was in the launch at the time, hunting for some article kept there; and the last I saw of the poor fellow, he was standing erect in the bows of the boat, as the latter drove over the vessel’s side, on the summit of a wave, like a bubble floating in a furious current.  Diogenes, it seems, had that moment gone to his camboose, to look after the plain dinner he was trying to boil, when probably seizing the iron as the most solid object near him, he was carried overboard with it, and never reappeared.  Marble was in a tolerably safe part of the vessel, at the wheel, and he kept his feet, though the water rose above his waist; as high, indeed, as his arms.  As for myself, I was saved only by the main-rigging, into which I was driven, and where I lodged.

I could not but admire the coolness and conduct of Marble even at that terrific moment!  In the first place, he put the helm hard down, and lashed the wheel, the wisest thing that could be done by men in our situation.  This he did by means of that nautical instinct, which enables a seaman to act, in the direst emergencies, almost without reflection, or, as one closes his eyes to avoid danger to the pupils.  Then he gave one glance at the state of things in-board, running forward with the end of a rope to throw to Diogenes, should the cook rise near the ship.  By the time he was