At four o’clock we were called again.  The same sail was still on the vessel, and the gale, if there was any change, had increased a little.  No attempt was made to take the studding-sail in; and, indeed, it was too late now.  If we had started anything toward taking it in, either tack or halyards, it would have blown to pieces, and carried something away with it.  The only way now was to let everything stand, and if the gale went down, well and good; if not, something must go,—­ the weakest stick or rope first,—­ and then we could get it in.  For more than an hour she was driven on at such a rate that she seemed to crowd the sea into a heap before her; and the water poured over the spritsail yard as it would over a dam.  Toward daybreak the gale abated a little, and she was just beginning to go more easily along, relieved of the pressure, when Mr. Brown, determined to give her no respite, and depending upon the wind’s subsiding as the sun rose, told us to get along the lower studding-sail.  This was an immense sail, and held wind enough to last a Dutchman a week,—­ hove-to.  It was soon ready, the boom topped up, preventer guys rove, and the idlers called up to man the halyards; yet such was still the force of the gale that we were nearly an hour setting the sail; carried away the outhaul in doing it, and came very near snapping off the swinging boom.  No sooner was it set than the ship tore on again like one mad, and began to steer wilder than ever.  The men at the wheel were puffing and blowing at their work, and the helm was going hard up and hard down, constantly.  Add to this, the gale did not lessen as the day came on, but the sun rose in clouds.  A sudden lurch threw the man from the weather wheel across the deck and against the side.  The mate sprang to the wheel, and the man, regaining his feet, seized the spokes, and they hove the wheel up just in time to save the ship from broaching to, though as she came up the studding-sail boom stood at an angle of forty-five degrees.  She had evidently more on her than she could bear; yet it was in vain to try to take it in,—­ the clew-line was not strong enough, and they were thinking of cutting away, when another wide yaw and a come-to snapped the guys, and the swinging boom came in with a crash against the lower rigging.  The outhaul block gave way, and the topmast studding-sail boom bent in a manner which I never before supposed a stick could bend.  I had my eye on it when the guys parted, and it made one spring and buckled up so as to form nearly a half-circle, and sprang out again to its shape.  The clew-line gave way at the first pull; the cleat to which the halyards were belayed was wrenched off, and the sail blew round the spritsail yard and head guys, which gave us a bad job to get it in.  A half-hour served to clear all away, and she was suffered to drive on with her topmast studding-sail set, it being as much as she could stagger under.

During all this day and the next night we went on under the same sail, the gale blowing with undiminished violence; two men at the wheel all the time; watch and watch, and nothing to do but to steer and look out for the ship, and be blown along;—­ until the noon of the next day,—­