However, he afterwards
brought his prize safe into Bermuda.
The weather still continued very rough, but we saw nothing until the
second evening after this. The forenoon had been even more boisterous
than any of the preceding, and we were all fagged enough with "make
sail," and "shorten sail," and "all hands," the whole day through; and
as the night fell, I found myself, for the fourth time, in the maintop.
The men had just lain in from the maintopsail yard, when we heard the
watch called on deck,--"Starboard watch, ahoy!"--which was a cheery
sound to us of the larboard, who were thus released from duty on deck,
and allowed to go below.
The men were scrambling down the weather shrouds, and I was preparing
to follow them, when I jammed my left foot in the grating of the top,
and capsized on my nose. I had been up nearly the whole of the
previous night, and on deck the whole of the day, and actively employed
too, as during the greater part of it it blew a gale. I stooped down
in some pain, to see what had bolted me to the grating; but I had no
sooner extricated my foot, than, over-worked and over-fatigued as I
was, I fell over in the soundest sleep that ever I have enjoyed before
or since, the back of my neck resting on a coil of rope, so that my
head hung down within it.
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