I awoke in the night and, getting out of my berth to take a look outside, put my feet in the water which had risen to cover the cabin floor.

All hands at the pumps kept it down, but it was clear that the old craft, nearly twenty years older than when I first saw her, was no longer seaworthy, and we had no hope of the weather lifting, for these southwesterly gales generally blow at least a day.

I went back to bed again, for there was nothing to be done but wait on fortune, and be glad that we should make Milo by daylight.
My previsions justified themselves, for in the course of the afternoon we made the entrance to the harbor, and ran in before such a sea as I never saw in those waters before.

The waves broke against the great pillar of rock that stands in the entrance of the harbor, sending the spray to its very summit, and as we ran to the anchorage off the little port the whole population poured down to see the arrival, wondering what sent the tiny craft out in such weather.

The old pilot said that it had been the worst gale of forty years, which I could well believe.