After a desperate struggle, half the time more or less under water, two men dragged in and fastened the fragments of the jib, while others set the foretop-mast staysail in its place.  But the wind was full of mischief; it seemed to be playing with the ship’s company; it furnished one piece of work after another with dizzying rapidity.  Hardly was the jib secured before the great mainsail ripped open from top to bottom, and in the same puff the close-reefed foretopsail split in two with a bang, from earing to earing.  Now came the orders fast and loud:  “Down yards!  Haul out reef tackle!  Lay out and furl!  Lay out and reef!”

It was a perfect mess; a score of ropes flying at once; the men rolling about and holding on; the sails slapping like mad, and ends of rigging streaming off to leeward.  After an exhausting fight the mainsail was furled, the upper half of the topsail set close-reefed, and everything hauled taut again.  Now came an hour or so without accident, but not without incessant and fatiguing labor, for the two royal yards were successively sent down to relieve the upper masts, and the foretopgallant sail, which had begun to blow loose, was frapped with long pieces of sinnet.

During this period of comparative quiet Thurstane ventured an attempt to reach his stateroom.  The little gloomy cabin was going hither and thither in a style which reminded him of the tossings of Gulliver’s cage after it had been dropped into the sea by the Brobdingnag eagle.  The steward was seizing up mutinous trunks and chairs to the table legs with rope-yarns.  The lamp was swinging and the captain’s compass see-sawing like monkeys who had gone crazy in bedlams of tree-tops.  From two of the staterooms came sounds which plainly confessed that the occupants were having a bad night of it.

“How is the lady passenger?” Thurstane could not help whispering.

“Guess she’s asleep, sah,” returned the negro.  “Fus-rate sailor, sah.  But them greasers is having tough times,” he grinned.  “Can’t abide the sea, greasers can’t, sah.”

Smiling with a grim satisfaction at this last statement, Thurstane gave the man a five-dollar piece, muttered, “Call me if anything goes wrong,” and slipped into his narrow dormitory.  Without undressing, he lay down and tried to sleep; but, although it was past midnight, he stayed broad awake for an hour or more; he was too full of thoughts and emotions to find easy quiet in a pillow.  Near him—­yes, in the very next stateroom—­lay the being who had made his life first a heaven and then a hell.  The present and the past struggled in him, and tossed him with their tormenting contest.  After a while, too, as the plunging of the brig increased, and he heard renewed sounds of disaster on deck, he began to fear for Clara’s safety.  It was a strange feeling, and yet a most natural one.  He had not ceased to love; he seemed indeed to love her more than ever; to think of her struggling in the billows was horrible; he knew even then that he would willingly die to save her.  But after a time the incessant motion affected him, and he dozed gradually into a sound slumber.