You
see."
"They talk about running the easting down," Mr. Pike chortled to me,
as we clung to the poop-rail to keep from fetching away and breaking
ribs and necks. "Well, this is running your westing down if anybody
should ride up in a go-devil and ask you."
It was a wretched, glorious night. Sleep was impossible--for me, at
any rate. Nor was there even the comfort of warmth. Something had
gone wrong with the big cabin stove, due to our wild running, I
fancy, and the steward was compelled to let the fire go out. So we
are getting a taste of the hardship of the forecastle, though in our
case everything is dry instead of soggy or afloat. The kerosene
stoves burned in our state room, but so smelly was mine that I
preferred the cold.
To sail on one's nerve in an over-canvassed harbour cat-boat is all
the excitement any glutton can desire. But to sail, in the same
fashion, in a big ship off the Horn, is incredible and terrible. The
Great West Wind Drift, setting squarely into the teeth of the
easterly gale, kicked up a tideway sea that was monstrous.
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