I turned to see if the mainsail was down, but found nothing had been done. The captain was shouting from the wheel; the men were also shouting and running about, half scared to death; and, in the pitchy darkness (for I could not see my hands when held close before my eyes), no one could find the halliards. In the midst of our trouble the wind came roaring down upon us. I seized a knife, determined to cut everything away; but just then somebody let go the halliards, and, in the nick of time, the mainsail came half-way down. The tornado was upon us. The jibs flew away in rags in a moment. The vessel was thrown upon her beam ends. The water rushed over her deck, and the men sang out that we were drowning; as, in fact, we should have been in a very few minutes. Happily the wind shifted a little; and, by the light of some very vivid lightning, we seized on the mainsail, like men that felt it was their last hope, and pulled it down, holding it so that the wind should not catch it again. The vessel righted, and in less than twenty minutes the squall died away, and was succeeded by a driving rain, which poured down in such torrents that in a very short time I was drenched to the skin. The lightning and thunder were something terrific. I was afraid of the lightning, striking us as the Caroline had no lightning-rod, and we had powder enough on board to blow us all to atoms. The deck was so leaky that even below I could not get protection from the rain.
The next morning we had no jibs, and our other sails were severely damaged. To add to our difficulties, no one on board, not even our captain, knew where we were. At that time I knew not how to make astronomical observations. The captain was in the habit of bringing up, every day, an old quadrant; but about the use of it he knew as much as a cow does about a musket.
At last we made the land. A canoe came on board, and we asked where we were. We found that we must be somewhere near Cape St. Catherine, and therefore a good many miles south of the mouth of the Fernand-Vaz, the place where I was bound. So we turned about to retrace our path. Sailing close in shore, when I passed the village of Aniambia, or Big Camma, the natives came with a message from their king, offering me two slaves if I would stay with him.