"
Having shaped our course for Barbadoes, I dressed my leg and went down
to sleep. This time I did not dream of Celeste, but fought the Spaniards
over again, thought I was wounded, and awoke with the pain of my leg.
Chapter LI
Peter turned out of his command by his vessel turning bottom up--A
cruise on a main-boom, with sharks _en attendant_--Self and crew, with
several flying fish, taken on board a negro boat--Peter regenerates by
putting on a new outward man.
We made Barbadoes without any further adventure, and were about ten
miles off the bay, steering with a very light breeze, and I went down
into the cabin, expecting to be at anchor before breakfast the next
morning. It was just daylight, when I found myself thrown out of my
bed-place on the deck, on the other side of the cabin, and heard the
rushing of water. I sprang up, I knew the schooner was on her beam ends,
and gained the deck. I was correct in my supposition: she had been upset
by what is called a white squall, and in two minutes would be down. All
the men were up on deck, some dressed, others, like myself, in their
shirts. Swinburne was aft; he had an axe in his hand, cutting away the
rigging of the main-boom. I saw what he was about; I seized another, and
disengaged the jaw-rope and small gear about the mast. We had no other
chance; our boat was under the water, being hoisted up on the side to
leeward. All this, however, was but the work of two minutes; and I could
not help observing by what trifles lives are lost or saved.
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