I knew the hour by striking a match and looking at a little watch my father had given me just before I left home; for, it was all dark in the cabin, the ports and scuttles being closed and the dead-lights in the stern being up, while the doors in the bulkheads were drawn to, so as to keep out the sea from rushing in when a wave came over the forecastle.
Opening one of the sliding panels with some difficulty and pushing it back far enough for my body to get through, I emerged on the main-deck, thence managed to scramble on the poop, where the captain and Mr Marline were standing as well as Jackson, all holding on to the rigging.
None of the officers had turned in all night, but I noticed that none of the hands were visible except the men at the helm, the captain allowing the rest to keep snug in the forecastle until they were wanted, for heavy seas were washing over the rails every now and then or coming in from the bows and sweeping the ship fore and aft, so there was no use in exposing the men unnecessarily when there was nothing really for them to do, as was the case now--no sail being set and only the wheel having to be attended to.
Ahead, astern, to the right hand and to the left, the sea was nothing but a mass of foam, while the air was thick with flying scud that was chopped off the heads of the great rolling waves every instant and whirled to leeward by the wind.

This seemed sometimes actually to beat down the water and make it level with its tremendous strength, the billows springing up, after each gust, like india-rubber balls that had been pressed flat and then suddenly released, for they spirted up into the air, flinging their crests aloft one brief moment only to be decapitated the next by the sweeping scythe-like blast.
Far and wide, the ocean presented a magnificent picture of awful grandeur and howling desolation.
Above, the sky was of a dull leadenish hue, and there was nothing anywhere to be seen beyond sky and water save the poor _Josephine_ tearing along through the chaotic maelstrom, labouring and groaning heavily as she rolled from side to side, dipping her yard-arms from time to time with each lurch, with the wind shrieking and whistling the most wonderful harp music through the rigging--nothing to be seen but the restless, roaring, heaving sea stretching away, like a boiling cauldron of soap-suds, to where the gloomy heavens met the angry horizon.
At mid-day, more from curiosity than anything else, as we had lost all track of our dead reckoning, Captain Miles had the log hove, when it was found that the vessel under her bare poles was going close on fourteen knots an hour.

The force of the wind on her hull and spars was quite sufficient alone to achieve this speed, for the yards were braced square and the helm kept as steady amidships as the send of the waves would allow and the four men in charge of the spokes could manage.
And so, we continued all that day and night, the gale still keeping up to the same pitch when the fourth morning broke, with never a sign of cessation, while the sea was, if possible, rougher than before, causing us to ship the water over our bows continually.
Captain Miles was fairly cornered.
"I tell you what, Marline," he said towards the afternoon, "I don't think there is now any possible chance of the wind backing again; so, as she's taking in such a lot over the bows, we must try and get some sail on her, to rise out of the trough of the sea." "I don't believe the mast will stand a rag, should we be able to hoist without its being blown to pieces," replied the first mate despondingly.
He seemed to have lost all heart, unlike the captain and Jackson, who were both still brave and cheerful, keeping up the spirits of the men.
These latter, I could see, were beginning to lose their courage too, going about their duties with a sort of dogged stubbornness unlike their old ready way.
"Well, we'll try it at any rate.

But, first, we must see to securing the masts.

Get up a spare hawser and we'll rig a fresh stay round the head of the foremast, and then we'll set the foresail.