Waterbury evening Democrat., 1888-03-24

bial mildneSS or the Pacific ocean was ill the mellow sweetness of the wind and in the gentle undulatlons of the silver-laced swell but scarce had we passed the height of 49 degs when the weather grew sullen and dark, heavy bank of clouds of livid hue rose in the northeast, and the wind came and went in small gusts, the gusts vent ing themselves in dreary moans, insomuch that our oldest hands confessed they had never heard blasts more portentous.
 The gale came on " tn some lightning and several claps of thunder and heavy raln Though it was but o'clock in the afternoon, the air was so dusl1y that the men had to feel for the ropes; and when the first of the tenn pest stormed down upon us, the appearance of the sea was uncommonly terrible, being swept and mangled into boiling froth in the northeast quarter, while all about us and in the southwest it lay in sort of swollen hud- dle of shadows, glooming into the darkness of the sky without offering the smallest glimpse of the horizon
 In few minutes the hurricane struck us We had barred the brig down to the close reefed mailitopsail; yet, though we were dead before the outlly, it's first blow rent the fragment of sail as if it were formed of smoke, and in an instant it disappeared, fash ing over the bows, like scattering of torn paper, leaving nothing but the bolt ropes be- hind. Tho bursting of the topsail was like the explosion of a large cannon. In a breath the brig was s.2lothercd with froth torn up in huge clouds, and hurled over and ahead of her in vast quivering bodies that filled the wind with dismal twilight of their own, in which nothing was visible but their terrific speeding. Through these singing, soft, and singing masses of spume drove the rain in horizontal steel like lines, which gleaned the lightning stroke, as though indeed they were barbetl weapons of bright metal, darted by armies of invisible spirits raving out their war cries as they chased us.
 The storm made loud thunder in the sky, and this tremendous utterance dominated without subduing the many screaming, hiss ing, shric1ing and hooting noises raised in the rigging and about the decks, and the wild, seething, weltering sound of the sea, maddened by the gale and struggling in it's enormous passion under the first choking and iron grip of the hlrricane's hand.
 But though the first rage of the storm was terrible enough, its ferceness did not come to its height till about o'clock in the middle watch Long before then the sea had grown mountainous, and the dance of our egg shell of brig upon it was sickening and alright ing.
 No man could show himself on deck and preserve his life. Between the rails it was waist high, and this water, converted by the motions of the brig into a wild torrent had its volume perpetually maintained by ton loads of sea, falling in dull and pounding crashes over the bows on to the forecastle. There was nothing to be done but secure the helm and await the issue below, for if we were to be drowned it would make more easy laundering to go down dry and warm in the cabin, than to perish half frozen and o1,.oa1y ,,oa11v st,1.a rer1ad hv the hitter cold and flooded tempest on deck.
 There was Capt. Rosy; there was myself, by name Paul Rodney, mate of the brig, and there were the remaining seven of a crew, including the carpenter. We sat in the cabin, one of us from time to time clawing his way up the ladder to peer through the companion, and we looked at one another with the melancholy of malefactors waiting to be called from their cells for the last jaunt to Tyburn.
 Thus it continued till daybreak, when something of its midnight fury went out of the gale. The carpenter made shift to sound the we'll, and to our great satisfaction found but little water, only as n1ch as we had right to suppose she would take in above. By noon the wind had weakened yet, but the sea still ran very heavily, and the sky was uncommonly thick with piles of dusky, yell Jewish, hurrying clouds; and though we could fairly reckon upon our position, the atmosphere was so nipping it was difficult to persuade ourselves that Cape Horn was not close aboard.
 We could now work the pumps, and a l short spell freed the brig. We got up new | maintopsail and bent it, and setting the | reefed foresail put the vessel before the wind, and away she ran, chased by the swollen seas Thus we continued till by dead reck- l oning we calculated that we were about l thirty leagues south of the parallel of the | Horn, and in longitude 87 degs west We l then boarded our larboard Jacks and brought | the brig as close to the wind as it was proper | to lay her for progress that should not be | wholly leeway; but four hours after we had | handled the braces the gale, that had not veered two points since it first came on to | blow, storned up again into it's first fury, and the morning of the 1st of July, A. D. | 1901, found the Laughing Mary passionately l laboring in the midst of an enraged Cape 1 Horn sea, her jibboom and foretopgallant- mast gone, her ballast shifted, so that her
 posture, even in calm, would have exhibited | her with her starboard channels under and
 her decks swept by enormous surges, which,
 fetching her larboard bilge dreadful blows 1 thundered in mighty green masses over her. | CHAPTER IT.
 THE ICEBERG.
 l Tn, loss of the spars have named was nc l great matter, nor were we to be intimidateG l by SUI l weather as was to be expected of l Cape Horn.