For more than an hour she was driven on at such a rate that she seemed
actually to crowd the sea into a heap before her; and the water poured
over the spritsail yard as it would over a dam. Toward daybreak the
gale abated a little, and she was just beginning to go more easily
along, relieved of the pressure, when Mr. Brown, determined to give
her no respite, and depending upon the wind's subsiding as the sun
rose, told us to get along the lower studding-sail. This was an
immense sail, and held wind enough to last a Dutchman a week,-
hove-to. It was soon ready, the boom topped up, preventer guys rove,
and the idlers called up to man the halyards; yet such was still the
force of the gale, that we were nearly an hour setting the sail;
carried away the outhaul in doing it, and came very near snapping off
the swinging boom. No sooner was it set than the ship tore on again
like one that was mad, and began to steer as wild as a hawk. The men
at the wheel were puffing and blowing at their work, and the helm was
going hard up and hard down, constantly. Add to this, the gale did
not lessen as the day came on, but the sun rose in clouds.
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