Shortly after breakfast, Captain Coxon sent me forward to dispatch a couple of hands on to the jib-boom to snug the inner jib, which looked to be rather shakily stowed.  I managed to dodge the water on the main-deck by waiting until it rolled to the starboard scuppers and then cutting ahead as fast as I could; but just as I got upon the forecastle, I was saluted by a green sea which carried me off my legs, and would have swept me down on the main-deck had I not held on stoutly with both hands to one of the fore-shrouds.  The water nearly drowned me, and kept me sneezing and coughing for ten minutes afterward.  But it did me no further mischief; for I was incased in good oilskins and sou’-wester, which kept me as dry as a bone inside.

Two ordinary seamen got upon the jib-boom, and I bade them keep a good hold, for the ship sometimes danced her figurehead under water and buried her sprit-sail-yard; and when she sunk her stern, her flying jib-boom stood up like the mizzenmast.  I waited until this job of snugging the sail was finished, and then made haste to get off the forecastle, where the seas flew so continuously and heavily that had I not kept a sharp lookout, I should several times have been knocked overboard.

Partly out of curiosity and partly with a wish to hearten the men, I looked into the forecastle before going aft.  There were sliding-doors let into the entrance on either side the windlass, but one of them was kept half open to admit air, the forescuttle above being closed.  The darkness here was made visible by an oil lamp,—­in shape resembling a tin coffee-pot with a wick in the spout,—­which burned black and smokily.  The deck was up to my ankles in water, which gurgled over the pile of swabs that lay at the open entrance.  It took my eye some moments to distinguish objects in the gloom; and then by degrees the strange interior was revealed.  A number of hammocks were swung against the upper deck and around the forecastle were two rows of bunks, one atop the other.  Here and there were sea-chests lashed to the deck; and these, with the huge windlass, a range of chain cable, lengths of rope, odds and ends of pots and dishes, with here a pair of breeches hanging from a hammock, and there a row of oilskins swinging from a beam,—­pretty well made up all the furniture that met my eye.

The whole of the crew were below.  Some of the men lay smoking in their bunks, others in their hammocks with their boots over the edge; one was patching a coat, another greasing his boots; others were seated in a group talking; while under the lamp were a couple of men playing at cards upon a chest, three or four watching and holding on by the hammocks over their heads.

A man, lying in his bunk with his face toward me, started up and sent his legs, incased in blanket trousers and brown woolen stockings, flying out.

“Here’s Mr. Royle, mates!” he called out.  “Let’s ask him the name of the port the captain means to touch at for proper food, for we aren’t goin’ to wait much longer.”