"Down! down for your lives!" shouted the captain.  The main-topmast had been carried away.  Masts, and yards, and blocks, and rigging, came hurtling down on deck in one mass of ruin, injuring two or three of our men, and knocking one poor fellow overboard.  In vain an attempt was made to save him.  To lower a boat would have been madness.  His death-shriek sounded in our ears as he dropped astern, and soon sunk beneath the dark, troubled waters.  We had little time to think of his fate--the fate of many a gallant seaman.  Our own danger was great.  The mates sprung forward to clear the wreck, and to secure as well as could be done the other masts.  The fear was that the fore-topmast and mizzen-topmast, if not the lower masts, deprived of their support, might go likewise.  The wreck was quickly cleared, and the masts got on board. To stand on or to heave to were equally out of the question.  It was necessary to put the ship before the wind.  The mizzentop-sail was furled, the helm put up, and the ship was to be wore round.  Now came the danger.  In wearing, if a sea strikes a ship abeam, there is a great risk of her bulwarks being stove in, and of everything being washed from her decks.  Every one held on to whatever he thought most secure.  The ship wore steadily round.  A huge sea came rolling on, but already the fore-yard was squared; it struck her on the counter, and she flew unharmed before it.  Instead, however, of running to the eastward, she was headed up towards the land.  No one turned in that night.  Sharp eyes were on the look-out for land.  Cape Horn, like some gigantic spirit of the deep, was seen towering up amid the raging ocean.  On we kept.  Once more we were under shelter of the land, the mizzen-top-sail was set, and we ran up just outside those islands which cluster thereabout so thickly, till at daylight we were off the mouth of a channel, up which we ran, and dropped our anchor in a fine land-locked harbour.