I owe this right hand, that is this moment flying over my sheet, and all my present being to Mad Jack.
The ship's bows were now butting, battering, ramming, and thundering over and upon the head seas, and with a horrible wallowing sound our whole hull was rolling in the trough of the foam.

The gale came athwart the deck, and every sail seemed bursting with its wild breath.
All the quarter-masters, and several of the forecastle-men, were swarming round the double-wheel on the quarter-deck.

Some jumping up and down, with their hands upon the spokes; for the whole helm and galvanised keel were fiercely feverish, with the life imparted to them by the tempest.
"Hard _up_ the helm!" shouted Captain Claret, bursting from his cabin like a ghost in his night-dress.
"Damn you!" raged Mad Jack to the quarter-masters; "hard down--hard _down_, I say, and be damned to you!" Contrary orders! but Mad Jack's were obeyed.

His object was to throw the ship into the wind, so as the better to admit of close-reefing the top-sails.

But though the halyards were let go, it was impossible to clew down the yards, owing to the enormous horizontal strain on the canvas.