Jerry and the mate saw the accident, and while I still held the tiller hard a-port, they at once got out the boat.  Jerry and Peter each took an oar and rowed quickly astern to where Captain Flett was swimming.

It will be easily understood that, left to myself, I could not manage the schooner with much skill; for, in the first place, I could not without help bring the sails over on the other tack, and in the second I could not well leave the helm.  Indeed, I had the greatest difficulty in hauling the vessel round, and before I succeeded in doing anything beyond simply putting the helm a-port, the driving snow had surrounded me in its mist, and I lost sight of the boat.

I could see it nowhere.  I called aloud, but the wind whistling in the ropes overpowered my voice.  I left the tiller and got the fog horn.  But, alas!  I had never practised blowing that instrument, and try as I would, I could get no more than a feeble grunt out of it.

Thicker and thicker grew the mist, and the snow fell in numerous and heavy flakes.  Darkness came on, and still never a boat could I see, never a sound could I hear but the ceaseless swish of the snow and the soughing of the wind.  The schooner pitched and rolled helplessly on the waves, and I was in terror lest the sails should split in their mad flapping.

I tried to secure the heavy boom that had been the cause of this mischief, and after a long struggle with it I succeeded.  Then I went below and lighted the lamps, and having fixed them in their places so that they might be seen from the boat I made another attempt to bring the vessel round on the starboard tack and keep her to the windward.

All through that long dark night I beat about on the rough sea with the snow driving cold and sharp upon me, and the waves breaking on the deck.  I was tired and sleepy after a hard day’s work, yet I could not think of this, nor of my hunger and my cold hands and feet.  My only object now was to recover my messmates, and as the night wore on without my seeing any sign of them, I grew utterly hopeless, for they were without food and far from land, and God alone knew what had become of them.

From my despair at the probable fate of the boat, however, I gradually realized the fact that my own condition was not without peril.  Here was I, a slip of a lad, alone and helpless, out in the open sea, in a schooner that three men could only with difficulty manage.  I had but small skill in seamanship.  I knew almost nothing of my whereabouts, and, added to these disadvantages, I had the physical discomforts to endure of fatigue, hunger, and cold.

At about nine o’clock I went below to get something to eat.  The fire was out, so I could not make any coffee; but there was a bottle of spirits in the locker, and fancying this might do me good I, for the first time in my life, drank some.  I at once felt much warmer, and I took half a glassful with some water and drank it with the oatcake and cold bacon that I ate.