Men were engaged in carrying out the anchor ahead to haul her away from a cluster of vessels which were making sad havoc with her quarter rails, fashion pieces, and gingerbread work on the stern.
I entered the forecastle, shook hands with Strictland, whose health had greatly improved, with prospect of a speedy recovery, and bade him be of good cheer, that he would be well enough on the morrow.

I threw on a chest my jacket and vest, containing what little money still remained on hand, and my "protection," and thus airily equipped, reckless of the clouds of mist and rain which at times enveloped the whole harbor, went on deck and turned to with a will, notwithstanding the scurvy treatment I had received from the captain the day before.

When I reached the deck, some of the men were engaged in heaving in the new cable; others were just then called aft by the captain to assist in bearing off a sloop on one quarter and a schooner on the other, and in disengaging the rigging which had caught in the spars.

The sloop had the appearance of a wreck.
The laniards of the shrouds had been cut away on both sides, and the tall and tapering mast was quivering and bending like a whipstock, from the action of the wind and the waves.

One of the cables, it was supposed, had parted; the sails, not having been properly furled, were fluttering and struggling, not altogether in vain, to get loose; and the deck on both sides was filled with shingle ballast, which had been brought from the shore early that morning, in the fear that the sloop might be driven out to sea, and had not been thrown into the hold.
The captain, mate, and crew of the sloop, finding their vessel in such a helpless condition, and entertaining wholesome fears for their own safety, ABANDONED THE SLOOP TO HER FATE, and embarked, with all their baggage, in the last boat that had brought off ballast.