Eight men bailing for life, even with hats and caps, can throw a great deal of water out of a boat in a very short time; and within five or ten minutes the first imminent danger of sinking was over.  Bowsher, who was a good swimmer and had not been seriously hurt by the boom, climbed back into the boat; we cut away the standing rigging, freed the sloop from the tangle of cordage, and got the water-soaked mainsail on board; and then, tying a corner of this sail to the stump of the mast, we spread it as well as we could, so that it would catch a little wind and give the boat steerage-way.  Under the influence of this scrap of canvas the sloop swung slowly around, across the seas; the water ceased to come into her; and wringing out our wet caps and clothing, we began to breathe more freely.

When the first excitement of the crisis had passed and I recovered my self-possession, I tried to estimate, as coolly as possible, our prospects and our chances.  The situation seemed to me almost hopeless.  We were in a dismasted boat, without oars, without a compass, without a morsel of food or a mouthful of water, and we were being blown out to sea in a heavy north-easterly gale.  It was so dark that we could not see the land on either side of the constantly widening gulf; there was no sign of the Onward; and in all probability there was not another vessel in any part of the Okhotsk Sea.  The nearest land was eight or ten miles distant; we were drifting farther and farther away from it; and in our disabled and helpless condition there was not the remotest chance of our reaching it.  In all probability our sloop would not live through the night in such a gale; and even should she remain afloat until morning, we should then be far out at sea, with nothing to eat or drink, and with no prospect of being picked up.  If the wind should hold in the direction in which it was blowing, it would carry us past the Onward at a distance of at least three miles; we had no lantern with which to attract the attention of the ship’s watch, even should we happen to drift past her within sight; the captain did not know that we were coming off to the bark that night, and would not think of looking out for us; and so far as I could discover, there was not a ray of hope for us in any direction.

How long we drifted out in black darkness, and in that tumbling, threatening, foam-crested sea, I do not know.  It seemed to me many hours.  I had a letter in my pocket which I had written the day before to my mother, and which I had intended to send down to San Francisco with the bark.  In it I assured her that she need not feel any further anxiety about my safety, because the Russian-American telegraph line had been abandoned.  I was to be landed by the Onward at Okhotsk; I was coming home by way of St. Petersburg over a good post-road; and I should not be exposed to any more dangers.  As I sat there in the dismasted sloop, shivering with cold and drifting out to sea before a howling arctic gale, I remembered this letter, and wondered what my poor mother would think if she could read its contents and at the same time see in a mental vision the situation of the writer.