He did not see that Captain Billings was on deck; and, eyeing the change in the ship's appearance, exclaimed, angrily, with that Scottish burr of his, which was always more pronounced when he was excited-- "Hoot, mon, wha' the dickens hae ye takken the sails off her--who ordered ye, I'd like ta ken ?" He was addressing Jorrocks; but the skipper, who was annoyed by his late arrival to relieve the watch, answered him sharply-- "I gave the order, Mr Macdougall, which you should have been up in time to have seen carried out; and, if you're a seaman and will just give a glance round, you'll soon see the reason why!" The first mate made no reply to this save to follow out the captain's suggestion of looking over the side; and what he saw there did not appear to give him any excuse for controverting the skipper's words; for, the clouds had now spread over the horizon--except to the southward, where it was still clear, and from which a short sharp gust of wind came every now and then, filling out the loose folds of the courses, and then, as it died away, letting them flap against the masts with a heavy dull sound as of distant thunder, an occasional streak of pale lightning darting across the sky to the north-west, where the heavens were most obscured, as if to bear out the illusion.
"We're in for it now, for certain," said Captain Billings presently, noticing a faint stir in the air above amidst the whizzing clouds, the upper strata of which were going in a contrary direction to that in which the vane pointed, which was still to the south-east.

"Boatswain, rouse out the watch below!" Jorrocks thereupon immediately went forward towards the fo'c's'le, knocking with a marlinspike three times on the deck, and shouting out the well-known hail that every sailor knows but too well.
"Tumble up there! All hands shorten sail!" The men, who had hardly shifted their clothes and turned in, after being relieved by the port watch at eight bells, came tumbling up on deck hurriedly, and the skipper at once ordered the topsail and foresail to be reefed, spanker to be brailed up, and the main course furled; while the vessel was kept with her head to the southward, that is, as well as the cross sea and the fitful gusts of wind would allow, under her jib, fore and main-topsails and forecourse.
Presently there was an ominous hum in the surrounding atmosphere, when the waves calmed down as if by magic; and then, a large rent disclosed itself in the sombre curtain of cloud to the north-west, the heavy masses of vapour that had been previously piling themselves along the horizon there and spreading up to the zenith falling back again and scurrying away in a retrograde direction, like skirmishers on a battle- field driven-in on to their supports by a rush of cavalry trying to cut them off.
"Here it comes!" shouted out Captain Billings, ordering the hands at the same time to "stand by" the braces and topsail halliards; and, almost ere the crew could get to their respective posts, the clouds had disappeared, with what seemed a supernatural celerity from the heavens, letting the clear blue sky be seen again and the bright twinkling stars peep down to see what all the fuss was about, all being calm and easy up there! Thanks to the skipper's precautions, the outburst of the gale did not take the _Esmeralda_ aback, as would most probably have been the case if the first mate had been in charge of the deck, when we should have most likely lost our spars, if the vessel had not foundered, as frequently happens when a ship is caught unprepared; as it was, she only winced slightly, with a shiver through her frame, as the wind struck her on the quarter, the masts and yards creaking and the topsails expanding with a sound like that of an explosion as they were blown out to their fullest extent, almost jumping from the bolt-ropes, and then her hull lay over to leeward while she began to push through the water, driven along before the blast at racehorse speed.
"Ease off those starboard braces there, and haul in to leeward ?" cried out Captain Billings, directing the man at the wheel by a wave of his hand to put the helm down slightly, so as to bring her head more up to the wind; but this was more than the steersman could do unaided, the vessel--carrying out the analogy I recently used--resembling a vicious charger that had taken the bit between his teeth--so, Mr Macdougall at once sprang to help the steersman, when the two together managed, by exerting all their united strength, to jam the spokes round so that the ship's head was brought over to the south-west, bearing off then with the wind before the beam.
The north-west gale was then blowing with tremendous force and increasing to the power of a hurricane each instant as it whistled through the cordage, wailing and shrieking like the lost souls in Dante's "Inferno." The momentarily quiet sea, too, had got up again, and was now covered with huge broken waves--raised aloft in pyramids one moment, and the next scooped out into yawning valleys, into which the vessel plunged, with a shock that made her timbers vibrate with the sledge-hammer thud of the bows meeting the billows full butt, the concussion causing columns of spray to be thrown up that came in over the cathead, drenching the fo'c's'le and pouring in a cascade into the waist, whence the broken water, washing aft along the deck, forming a lake on the lee-side, where the scuppers were level with the sea, from the ship's heeling over.
We were still carrying too much sail; and this the skipper was as quick as any one to perceive, although he was anxious to pursue his course as long as he could, and make as much capital as he could out of the north- wester in his way to the Line.
"Hands shorten sail!" accordingly was the repeated cry; and, knowing what was wanted, the crew were soon racing up the shrouds to close-reef the topsails, although the force of the wind nearly pinned them to the rigging like spread eagles, and they had hard difficulty in gaining the yards, and working out along the foot-ropes, especially on those to windward.
The topsail halliards had of course been let go before this, and the loose sails were filled out like balloons, so that it took some time to get in the bunt and tie the reef points; but it was at last done, and we returned to the deck--I being especially triumphant at having out-paced one of the smartest topmen in the ship, in gaining the weather earing of the foretop sail before him, and completing my task so quickly as to get down on deck before some of the rest had yet left the yard.
Captain Billings, I was pleased to see, noticed my activity, giving me an approving smile, which more than counterbalanced the scowl that Macdougall greeted my reappearance with below; but all such thoughts were soon banished by the skipper's fresh order to go aloft and take in the topsail we had only just close-reefed, the vessel being buried too much by the head.
Away up the rattlins we all climbed again; while those below, on the halliards being started by the run, began hauling on the clewlines and buntlines, bagging up the sail so that we could hand it easier.

It was stiffer work furling it than the reefing had been; but, at length this, too, was accomplished, albeit I nearly narrowly got knocked off the yard-arm by the flapping back of the folds of canvas in my face as the wind caught the leech sideways.

We then returned once more to the more substantial platform of the deck, glad enough to get down safe again.
"Let go the jib halliards!" was the next command, some of the hands starting forwards to man the down haul; but the moment the halliards were cast loose, the accommodating sail saved us any further trouble in the way of stowing it, by blowing clean away to leeward with a report as if a small cannon had been fired off on the fo'c's'le--floating out against the dark background of the sky like a child's kite whose string has parted and let it go to grief, tumbling down from its soaring height, and disappearing in the dim distance to leeward, where the clouds had already vanished.
The ship was now only under her close-reefed main-topsail and reefed foresail, all the rest of her canvas having been taken off her by degrees; still, she laboured so greatly, and got such a list to leeward--with the topmasts bent like fishing rods under the strain, while the weather shrouds were as taut as fiddle-strings, and those on the port side hung limp and loose through the stretching of the rigging--that the skipper saw she would not stand driving any more.

The only thing now to be done, he thought, was to lay her to, so that, as he could not get her any further on her forward journey, she should not, at all events, lose the progress she had already made save by leeway drift, which of course was unavoidable.
"Ease down the helm!" he cried to the two men, who were now necessary at the wheel, while the fore-tack was boarded, the lee braces hauled aft, and the mainyard braced in, when the ship was brought up to the wind, bowing and scraping, and taking in tons of water over the fo'c's'le, in this operation, that washed everybody off their legs in the waist, bundling them away to leeward in a bunch.
For a time the _Esmeralda_ now behaved very well, the mizen trysail being set to steady her, although, being hove to on the starboard tack, she drifted sideways, before the fierce north-west gale, making as much leeway towards the south and east as if she had been running free; but, presently, there was a loud crack heard forwards, and Haxell, the carpenter, came up to the skipper on the poop, looking even more serious than usual as he crawled aft under shelter of the bulwarks.
"The foremast is sprung, sir," said he in a melancholy tone of voice, as if he were announcing the fact of his just going to be hanged.
"Is it serious ?" asked Captain Billings.
"Aye, aye, sir, it's all that," replied Haxell.