It was now eleven o'clock, and the watch was sent below to get
breakfast, and at eight bells (noon), as everything was snug, although
the gale had not in the least abated, the watch was set, and the other
watch and idlers sent below. For three days and three nights, the gale
continued with unabated fury, and with singular regularity. There
was no lulls, and very little variation in its fierceness. Our ship,
being light, rolled so as almost to send the fore yard-arm under
water, and drifted off bodily, to leeward. All this time there was not
a cloud to be seen in the sky, day or night;- no, not so large as a
man's hand. Every morning the sun rose cloudless from the sea, and set
again at night, in the sea, in a flood of light. The stars, too,
came out of the blue, one after another, night after night,
unobscured, and twinkled as clear as on a still frosty night at
home, until the day came upon them. All this time, the sea was rolling
in immense surges, white with foam, as far as the eye could reach,
on every side, for we were now leagues and leagues from shore.
The between-decks being empty, several of us slept there in
hammocks, which are the best things in the world to sleep in during
a storm; it not being true of them, as it is of another kind of bed,
"when the wind blows, the cradle will rock;" for it is the ship that
rocks, while they always hang vertically from the beams.
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